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Programming Language Theory: Difference between revisions
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* Use of definitions (allowing identifiers to stand in as λ-expressions) | * Use of definitions (allowing identifiers to stand in as λ-expressions) | ||
* Currying: <tt>(λx, y . x + y)</tt> rather than <tt>(λx . (λy . x + y))</tt> | * Currying: <tt>(λx, y . x + y)</tt> rather than <tt>(λx . (λy . x + y))</tt> | ||
* Numeric literals rather than [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_encoding Church encoding] | * Numeric literals rather than [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_encoding Church encoding] (n ≡ λf . λx . f<super>n</super>x) | ||
Revision as of 05:41, 7 December 2009
Applicative/Functional Programming
Expressions compose functions rather than values. Backus proposed three tiers of complexity in his Turing Award lecture:
- Simply functional language (fp): No state, limited names, finitely many functional forms, simple substitution semantics, algebraic laws
- Formal functional system (ffp): Extensible functional forms, functions represented by objects, translation of object representation to applicable form, formal semantics
- Applicative state transition system (ast): ffp plus mutable state and coarse-grained operations thereupon
Untyped λ-calculus
Two operators (function definition and application) upon one operand type (λ-expression).
- Function definition: (λformalparam . body)
- Function application: function(actualparam)
Common syntactic sugar:
- Left-associative application as implicit parentheses
- Use of definitions (allowing identifiers to stand in as λ-expressions)
- Currying: (λx, y . x + y) rather than (λx . (λy . x + y))
- Numeric literals rather than Church encoding (n ≡ λf . λx . f<super>n</super>x)
