The MOQA Language

In this chapter we provide the specifications for theMOQAlanguage. The intention is to sketch in sufficient detail the main concepts of the language as opposed to a strict and exhaustive formal development. The language specifications suffice to develop the examples considered in Chapters 8 and 9.

Note that MOQAis a domain specific language. It shares its restrictive nature with current languages aimed at automating average-case timing, including [Coh74, Weg 75, Ram96, FSZ89, FSZ91].MOQA’s distinctive feature is that it enables one to implement algorithms built from randomness preserving operations over abstract data types, which supports its modularity. MOQAcan be interpreted as a suite of purposely designed operations aimed at facilitating average time analysis.

Most languages for automated average-case analysis can not incorporate traditional data structures, such as lists, binary search trees and heaps, in a natural way and hence stay quite removed from traditional programming practice. TheMOQAlanguage, though still restricted in nature, aims at incorporating traditional data structures and provides a new basis to support the development of static average-case analysis tools, where its main distinctive feature is the incorporation of the notion of randomness preserving operations to support compositionality.