Categorical Combinators, Sequential Algorithms, and Functional Programming

Download or read book Categorical Combinators, Sequential Algorithms, and Functional Programming written by P.-L. Curien and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a revised edition of the monograph which appeared under the same title in the series Research Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, Pit man, in 1986. In addition to a general effort to improve typography, English, and presentation, the main novelty of this second edition is the integration of some new material. Part of it is mine (mostly jointly with coauthors). Here is brief guide to these additions. I have augmented the account of categorical combinatory logic with a description of the confluence properties of rewriting systems of categor ical combinators (Hardin, Yokouchi), and of the newly developed cal culi of explicit substitutions (Abadi, Cardelli, Curien, Hardin, Levy, and Rios), which are similar in spirit to the categorical combinatory logic, but are closer to the syntax of A-calculus (Section 1.2). The study of the full abstraction problem for PCF and extensions of it has been enriched with a new full abstraction result: the model of sequential algorithms is fully abstract with respect to an extension of PCF with a control operator (Cartwright, Felleisen, Curien). An order extensional model of error-sensitive sequential algorithms is also fully abstract for a corresponding extension of PCF with a control operator and errors (Sections 2.6 and 4.1). I suggest that sequential algorithms lend themselves to a decomposition of the function spaces that leads to models of linear logic (Lamarche, Curien), and that connects sequentiality with games (Joyal, Blass, Abramsky) (Sections 2.1 and 2.6).