Abstract
The polymorphic type system of the programming language Ponder [FAIR82] is described. The initial sections give an overview of the syntax of Ponder, some of the motivation behind the design of the type system, and a description of its relationship with other type systems. This is followed by a definition of the relation of ‘generality’ between Ponder types, and of the notion of type-validity of Ponder programs. An algorithm to determine whether a Ponder program is type-valid is then presented. The final sections give examples of useful types that may be constructed within the type system, and describe some of the areas in which it is thought to be inadequate.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Burstall, R.M., D.B. MacQueen, and D.T. Sanella, Hope: An Experimental Applicative Language, Technical Report CSR 62–80, Edinburgh Department of Computer Science, 1980.
Cardelli, L., and D. MacQueen, Persistence and Type Abstraction, Proc. of the Persistence and Data Types Workshop, Appin, Scotland, August, 1985.
Demers, A., and Donahue, J., The Semantics of Russell: An Excercise in Abstract Data Types., Technical Report, Computer Science Department, Cornell University, 1980.
Fairbairn, J., Ponder and its type system, Cambridge University Computer Laboratory Technical Report 31, 1982.
Gordon, M.J., Milner, A.J.R.G., and Wadsworth, C.P., Edinburgh LCF, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, No. 78, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1979.
Matthews, D.C.J., Poly Manual, SIGPLAN Notices, Vol. 20, No. 9, September 1985.
Matthews, D.C.M., An Overview of the Poly Programming Language, Proc. of the Persistence and Data Types Workshop, Appin, Scotland, August, 1985.
Milner, R., A Theory of Type Polymorphism in Programming, Journal of Computer and System Sciences, Vol. 17, No. 3, December 1978.
Mitchell, J.C., and G.D. Plotkin, Abstract Types have Existential Type, In Proc. 1985 12th ACM Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, New Orleans, Louisiana, January 1985, pp. 37–51.
MacQueen, D.B., and R. Sethi, A Semantic Model of Types for Applicative Languages, Symposium on Lisp and Functional Programming, ACM 1982.
MacQueen, D.B., R. Sethi, and G. Plotkin, An Ideal Model for Recursive Polymorphic Types, Eleventh Annual ACM Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, 1984.
Reynolds, J.C., Three Approaches to Type-Structure, In Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science No. 185,1986.
Robinson, J.A., A Machine Orientated Logic Based on the Resolution Principle, Journal of the ACM, Vol. 12,1965, pp 23–31.
van Wijngaarden, A., et al, The Revised Report on the Algorithmic Language Algol 68, Springer Verlag 1975
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1988 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Fairbairn, J. (1988). A New Type-Checker for a Functional Language. In: Atkinson, M.P., Buneman, P., Morrison, R. (eds) Data Types and Persistence. Topics in Information Systems. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-61556-6_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-61556-6_6
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-64870-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-61556-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive