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Meta-circular Evaluator
In computing, a meta-circular evaluator (MCE) or meta-circular interpreter (MCI) is an interpreter which defines each feature of the interpreted language using a similar facility of the interpreter's host language. For example, interpreting a lambda application may be implemented using function application. Meta-circular evaluation is most prominent in the context of Lisp. A self-interpreter is a meta-circular interpreter where the interpreted language is nearly identical to the host language; the two terms are often used synonymously. History The dissertation of Corrado Böhm describes the design of a self-hosting compiler. Due to the difficulty of compiling higher-order functions, many languages were instead defined via interpreters, most prominently Lisp. The term itself was coined by John C. Reynolds, and popularized through its use in the book '' Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs''. Self-interpreters A self-interpreter is a meta-circular interpreter whe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computing
Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computer, computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and the development of both computer hardware, hardware and software. Computing has scientific, engineering, mathematical, technological, and social aspects. Major computing disciplines include computer engineering, computer science, cybersecurity, data science, information systems, information technology, and software engineering. The term ''computing'' is also synonymous with counting and calculation, calculating. In earlier times, it was used in reference to the action performed by Mechanical computer, mechanical computing machines, and before that, to Computer (occupation), human computers. History The history of computing is longer than the history of computing hardware and includes the history of methods intended for pen and paper (or for chalk and slate) with or without the aid of tables. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Haskell
Haskell () is a general-purpose, statically typed, purely functional programming language with type inference and lazy evaluation. Designed for teaching, research, and industrial applications, Haskell pioneered several programming language features such as type classes, which enable type-safe operator overloading, and monadic input/output (IO). It is named after logician Haskell Curry. Haskell's main implementation is the Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC). Haskell's semantics are historically based on those of the Miranda programming language, which served to focus the efforts of the initial Haskell working group. The last formal specification of the language was made in July 2010, while the development of GHC continues to expand Haskell via language extensions. Haskell is used in academia and industry. , Haskell was the 28th most popular programming language by Google searches for tutorials, and made up less than 1% of active users on the GitHub source code repository ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Typed Lambda Calculus
A typed lambda calculus is a typed formalism that uses the lambda symbol (\lambda) to denote anonymous function abstraction. In this context, types are usually objects of a syntactic nature that are assigned to lambda terms; the exact nature of a type depends on the calculus considered (see kinds below). From a certain point of view, typed lambda calculi can be seen as refinements of the untyped lambda calculus, but from another point of view, they can also be considered the more fundamental theory and ''untyped lambda calculus'' a special case with only one type. Typed lambda calculi are foundational programming languages and are the base of typed functional programming languages such as ML and Haskell and, more indirectly, typed imperative programming languages. Typed lambda calculi play an important role in the design of type systems for programming languages; here, typability usually captures desirable properties of the program (e.g., the program will not cause a memory acce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Turing Complete
Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher and theoretical biologist. He was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general-purpose computer. Turing is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science. Born in London, Turing was raised in southern England. He graduated from King's College, Cambridge, and in 1938, earned a doctorate degree from Princeton University. During World War II, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, Britain's codebreaking centre that produced Ultra intelligence. He led Hut 8, the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. Turing devised techniques for speeding the breaking of German ciphers, including improvements to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strongly Normalizing
In abstract rewriting, an object is in normal form if it cannot be rewritten any further, i.e. it is irreducible. Depending on the rewriting system, an object may rewrite to several normal forms or none at all. Many properties of rewriting systems relate to normal forms. Definitions Stated formally, if (''A'',→) is an abstract rewriting system, ''x''∈''A'' is in normal form if no ''y''∈''A'' exists such that ''x''→''y'', i.e. ''x'' is an irreducible term. An object ''a'' is weakly normalizing if there exists at least one particular sequence of rewrites starting from ''a'' that eventually yields a normal form. A rewriting system has the weak normalization property or is ''(weakly) normalizing'' (WN) if every object is weakly normalizing. An object ''a'' is strongly normalizing if every sequence of rewrites starting from ''a'' eventually terminates with a normal form. A rewriting system is ''strongly normalizing'', ''terminating'', ''noetherian'', or has the (strong) norma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Total Functional Programming
Total functional programming (also known as strong functional programming, to be contrasted with ordinary, or ''weak'' functional programming) is a programming paradigm that restricts the range of programs to those that are provably terminating. Restrictions Termination is guaranteed by the following restrictions: # A restricted form of recursion, which operates only upon 'reduced' forms of its arguments, such as Walther recursion, substructural recursion, or "strongly normalizing" as proven by abstract interpretation of code. # Every function must be a total (as opposed to partial) function. That is, it must have a definition for everything inside its domain. #* There are several possible ways to extend commonly used partial functions such as division to be total: choosing an arbitrary result for inputs on which the function is normally undefined (such as \forall x \in \mathbb. x \div 0 = 0 for division); adding another argument to specify the result for those inputs; or excl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Olivier Danvy
Olivier Danvy is a French computer scientist specializing in programming languages, partial evaluation, and continuations. He is a professor at Yale-NUS College in Singapore. Danvy received his PhD degree from the Université Paris VI in 1986. He is notable for the number of scientific papers which acknowledge his help. Writing in ''Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...'', editor Declan Butler reports on an analysis of acknowledgments on nearly one third of a million scientific papers and reports that Danvy is "the most thanked person in computer science". Danvy himself is quoted as being "stunned to find my name at the top of the list", ascribing his position to a "series of coincidences": he is multidisciplinary, is well travelled, is part of an internatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SECD Machine
The SECD machine is a highly influential (see: '' Landin's contribution'') virtual machine and abstract machine intended as a target for compilers of functional programming languages. The letters stand for stack, environment, control, dump, respectively, which are the internal registers of the machine. The registers stack, control, and dump point to (some realizations of) stacks, and environment points to (some realization of) an associative array. The machine was the first to be specifically designed to evaluate lambda calculus expressions. It was originally described by Peter Landin in "The Mechanical Evaluation of Expressions" in 1964. The description published by Landin was fairly abstract, and left many implementation choices open (like an operational semantics). Lispkit Lisp was an influential compiler based on the SECD machine, and the SECD machine has been used as the target for other systems such as Lisp/370. In 1989, researchers at the University of Calgary worked o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Krivine Machine
In theoretical computer science, the Krivine machine is an ''abstract machine''. As an abstract machine, it shares features with Turing machines and the SECD machine. The Krivine machine explains how to compute a recursive function. More specifically it aims to define rigorously head normal form reduction of a lambda term using call-by-name reduction. Thanks to its formalism, it tells in details how a kind of reduction works and sets the theoretical foundation of the operational semantics of functional programming languages. On the other hand, Krivine machine implements call-by-name because it evaluates the body of a β- redex before it applies the body to its parameter. In other words, in an expression (''λ'' ''x''. ''t'') ''u'' it evaluates first ''λ'' ''x''. ''t'' before applying it to ''u''. In functional programming, this would mean that in order to evaluate a function applied to a parameter, it evaluates first the function before applying it to the parameter. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CEK Machine
A CEK Machine is an abstract machine invented by Matthias Felleisen and Daniel P. Friedman that implements left-to-right call by value. It is generally implemented as an interpreter for functional programming languages, but can also be used to implement simple imperative programming languages. A state in a CEK machine includes a control statement, environment and continuation. The control statement is the term being evaluated at that moment, the environment is (usually) a map from variable names to values, and the continuation stores another state, or a special halt case. It is a simplified form of another abstract machine called the SECD machine. The CEK machine builds on the SECD machine by replacing the dump (call stack) with the more advanced continuation, and putting parameters directly into the environment, rather than pushing them on to the parameter stack first. Other modifications can be made which creates a whole family of related machines. For example, the CESK machine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Defunctionalization
In programming languages, defunctionalization is a compile-time transformation which eliminates higher-order functions, replacing them by a single first-order ''apply'' function. The technique was first described by John C. Reynolds in his 1972 paper, "Definitional Interpreters for Higher-Order Programming Languages". Reynolds' observation was that a given program contains only finitely many function abstractions, so that each can be assigned and replaced by a unique identifier. Every function application within the program is then replaced by a call to the ''apply'' function with the function identifier as the first argument. The ''apply'' function's only job is to dispatch on this first argument, and then perform the instructions denoted by the function identifier on the remaining arguments. One complication to this basic idea is that function abstractions may reference free variables. In such situations, defunctionalization must be preceded by closure conversion (lambda li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Closure (computer Programming)
In programming languages, a closure, also lexical closure or function closure, is a technique for implementing lexically scoped name binding in a language with first-class functions. Operationally, a closure is a record storing a function together with an environment. The environment is a mapping associating each free variable of the function (variables that are used locally, but defined in an enclosing scope) with the value or reference to which the name was bound when the closure was created. Unlike a plain function, a closure allows the function to access those ''captured variables'' through the closure's copies of their values or references, even when the function is invoked outside their scope. History and etymology The concept of closures was developed in the 1960s for the mechanical evaluation of expressions in the λ-calculus and was first fully implemented in 1970 as a language feature in the PAL programming language to support lexically scoped first-class functio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
