Domains And Lambda Calculi

Graduate text on mathematical foundations of programming languages, and operational and denotational semantics.

The book contains a completely new presentation of classical results in the field of Lambda Calculus, together with new results. The text is unique in that it presents a new calculus (Parametric Lambda Calculus) which can be instantiated to obtain already known lambda-calculi. Some properties, which in the literature have been proved separately for different calculi, can be proved once for the Parametric one. The lambda calculi are presented from a Computer Science point of view, with a particular emphasis on their semantics, both operational and denotational.

Lambda calculus lies at the very foundation of computer science. Besides its historical role in computability theory, it has had significant influence on programming language design and implementation, denotational semantics and domain theory. This book is written from a systems perspective, emphasizing the practical relevance of many of the key theoretical ideas.

The lambda-calculus lies at the very foundations of computer science. Besides its historical role in computability theory it has had significant influence on programming language design and implementation, denotational semantics, and domain theory. The book emphasises the proof theory for the type-free lambda-calculus. The first six chapters concern this calculus and cover the basic theory, reduction, models, computability, and the relationship between the lambda-calculus and combinatory logic. Chapter 7 presents a variety of typed calculi; first the simply typed lambda-calculus, then Milner-style polymorphism and, finally, the polymorphic lambda-calculus. Chapter 8 concerns two variants of the type-free lambda-calculus that have appeared in the research literature: the lazy lambda-calculus, and the lambda sigma-calculus. The final chapter contains references and a guide to further reading. There are exercises throughout. In contrast to earlier books on these topics, which were written by logicians, this book is written from a computer science perspective and emphasises the practical relevance of many of the key theoretical ideas. The book is intended as a course text for final year undergraduates or first year graduate students in computer science. Research students should find it a useful introduction to more specialist literature.

This handbook with exercises reveals in formalisms, hitherto mainly used for hardware and software design and verification, unexpected mathematical beauty. The lambda calculus forms a prototype universal programming language, which in its untyped version is related to Lisp, and was treated in the first author's classic The Lambda Calculus (1984). The formalism has since been extended with types and used in functional programming (Haskell, Clean) and proof assistants (Coq, Isabelle, HOL), used in designing and verifying IT products and mathematical proofs. In this book, the authors focus on three classes of typing for lambda terms: simple types, recursive types and intersection types. It is in these three formalisms of terms and types that the unexpected mathematical beauty is revealed. The treatment is authoritative and comprehensive, complemented by an exhaustive bibliography, and numerous exercises are provided to deepen the readers' understanding and increase their confidence using types.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Typed Lambda Calculi and Applications, TLCA 2011, held in Novi Sad, Serbia, in June 2011 as part of RDP 2011, the 6th Federated Conference on Rewriting, Deduction, and Programming. The 15 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 44 submissions. The papers provide prevailing research results on all current aspects of typed lambda calculi, ranging from theoretical and methodological issues to applications in various contexts addressing a wide variety of topics such as proof-theory, semantics, implementation, types, and programming.

The lambda calculus was developed in the 1930s by Alonzo Church. The calculus turned out to be an interesting model of computation and became theprototype for untyped functional programming languages. Operational and denotational semantics for the calculus served as examples for otherprogramming languages. In typed lambda calculi, lambda terms are classified according to their applicative behavior. In the 1960s it was discovered that the types of typed lambda calculi are in fact appearances of logical propositions. Thus there are two possible views of typed lambda calculi: - as models of computation, where terms are viewed as programs in a typed programming language; - as logical theories, where the types are viewed as propositions and the terms as proofs. The practical spin-off from these studies are: - functional programming languages which are mathematically more succinct than imperative programs; - systems for automated proof checking based on lambda caluli. This volume is the proceedings of TLCA '93, the first international conference on Typed Lambda Calculi and Applications,organized by the Department of Philosophy of Utrecht University. It includes29 papers selected from 51 submissions.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Typed Lambda Calculi and Applications, TLCA 2009, held in Brasilia, Brazil in July 2008 in conjunction with RTA 2007, the 19th International Conference on Rewriting Techniques and Applications as part of RDP 2009, the 5th International Conference on Rewriting, Deduction, and Programming. The 27 revised full papers presented together with 2 invited talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 53 submissions. The papers present original research results that are broadly relevant to the theory and applications of typed calculi and address a wide variety of topics such as proof-theory, semantics, implementation, types, and programming.