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Inconsistencies of pure LISP

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Theoretical Computer Science

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 145))

Abstract

In a first informal section we shall discuss some problems with definitions of list functions. In particular we motivate the restrictions of pure LISP with respect to list expressions using the full lambda definability.

In sections two and three we formally define the lambda-semantics of the pure LISP language as well as the denotational description of the original semantics of pure LISP as defined by the interpreter EVALQUOTE. In the last section, we show that even for this restricted language the interpreter does not work correctly with respect to the laws of the λ-calculus.

These results sharpen previous results by Perrot [6], Simon [7] and others, which point out that the usage of functional arguments in extended LISP destroys the α- and β-convertibility of LISP-expressions.

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References

  1. Mc Carthy, J. et al.: "LISP 1.5 Programmer's Manual" M.I.T. Press (1965)

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  3. Fehr, E.: "The lambda-semantics of LISP" Schriften zur Informatik und Angewandten Mathematik, Bericht Nr. 72, RWTH Aachen (1981)

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  8. Strachey, C.: "Towards a Formal Semantics" in Formal Language Description Languages for Computer Programming (ed. Steele, T.B.), North-Holland (1966)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lehrstuhl für Informatik II RWTH Aachen, Germany

    Andreas Eick & Elfriede Fehr

Authors
  1. Andreas Eick
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  2. Elfriede Fehr
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Armin B. Cremers Hans-Peter Kriegel

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© 1982 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Eick, A., Fehr, E. (1982). Inconsistencies of pure LISP. In: Cremers, A.B., Kriegel, HP. (eds) Theoretical Computer Science. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 145. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0036473

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0036473

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-11973-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-39421-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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