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Main Authors: McDermott, Dylan, Mycroft, Alan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2022
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2202.08246
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author McDermott, Dylan
Mycroft, Alan
author_facet McDermott, Dylan
Mycroft, Alan
contents We establish a general framework for reasoning about the relationship between call-by-value and call-by-name. In languages with computational effects, call-by-value and call-by-name executions of programs often have different, but related, observable behaviours. For example, if a program might diverge but otherwise has no effects, then whenever it terminates under call-by-value, it terminates with the same result under call-by-name. We propose a technique for stating and proving properties like these. The key ingredient is Levy's call-by-push-value calculus, which we use as a framework for reasoning about evaluation orders. We show that the call-by-value and call-by-name translations of expressions into call-by-push-value have related observable behaviour under certain conditions on computational effects, which we identify. We then use this fact to construct maps between the call-by-value and call-by-name interpretations of types, and identify further properties of effects that imply these maps form a Galois connection. These properties hold for some computational effects (such as divergence), but not others (such as mutable state). This gives rise to a general reasoning principle that relates call-by-value and call-by-name. We apply the reasoning principle to example computational effects including divergence and nondeterminism.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2202_08246
institution arXiv
publishDate 2022
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Galois connecting call-by-value and call-by-name
McDermott, Dylan
Mycroft, Alan
Programming Languages
We establish a general framework for reasoning about the relationship between call-by-value and call-by-name. In languages with computational effects, call-by-value and call-by-name executions of programs often have different, but related, observable behaviours. For example, if a program might diverge but otherwise has no effects, then whenever it terminates under call-by-value, it terminates with the same result under call-by-name. We propose a technique for stating and proving properties like these. The key ingredient is Levy's call-by-push-value calculus, which we use as a framework for reasoning about evaluation orders. We show that the call-by-value and call-by-name translations of expressions into call-by-push-value have related observable behaviour under certain conditions on computational effects, which we identify. We then use this fact to construct maps between the call-by-value and call-by-name interpretations of types, and identify further properties of effects that imply these maps form a Galois connection. These properties hold for some computational effects (such as divergence), but not others (such as mutable state). This gives rise to a general reasoning principle that relates call-by-value and call-by-name. We apply the reasoning principle to example computational effects including divergence and nondeterminism.
title Galois connecting call-by-value and call-by-name
topic Programming Languages
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2202.08246