Categorical Combinators, Sequential Algorithms, and Functional Programming

Pierre-Louis Curien3764336544, 9783764336547, 0817636544

This book is a thoroughly revised edition of a monograph that presents an approach to the design and implementation of sequential programming languages based on the relationship between lambda-calculus and category theory. The foundations of a new “categorical” combinatory logic are laid down. Compilation and evaluation techniques are investigated. A simple abstract machine, called the Categorical Abstract Machine, is presented: it has served as the core of the implementation of the language CAML, of the ML family, developed at INRIA-Roquencourt and Ecole Normale Superieure, and first released in 1987. The main characteristics of this approach are conceptual simplicity and compactness, with bearings on portability, efficiency, and correctness proofs. A mathematical semantics of sequentiality is proposed, in which “sequential algorithms” rather than functions are used to interpret procedures. The theoretical investigation has led to the development of a programming language, CDSO, in which basic and functional types are not differentiated. The evaluation framework is a demand-driven data flow network. The model of sequential algorithms is fully abstract with respect to this language: two procedures have the same denotation if and only if they have the same behaviour. Background on full abstraction is given. The new edition covers new results, and introduces new connections, as suggested by the following non-exhaustive fist of keywords: confluence properties of categorical combinators, explicit substitutions, control operations, linear logic, geometry of interaction, strong stability.