Abstract
This paper presents a formalism for including first-class continuations in a programming language as a declarative concept, rather than an imperative one. A symmetric extension of the typed λ-calculus is introduced, where values and continuations play dual roles, permitting mirror-image syntax for dual categorical concepts like products and coproducts. An implementable semantic description and a static type system for this calculus are presented. We also give a categorical description of the language, by presenting a correspondence with a system of combinatory logic, similar to a cartesian closed category, but with a completely symmetrical set of axioms.
Address from Sept. '89: CS Dept., Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890
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© 1989 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Filinski, A. (1989). Declarative continuations: An investigation of duality in programming language semantics. In: Pitt, D.H., Rydeheard, D.E., Dybjer, P., Pitts, A.M., Poigné, A. (eds) Category Theory and Computer Science. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 389. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0018355
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0018355
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