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Functional Programming, Glasgow 1991 pp 298–311Cite as

Operational Theories of Improvement in Functional Languages

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Part of the book series: Workshops in Computing ((WORKSHOPS COMP.))

Abstract

In this paper we address the technical foundations essential to the aim of providing a semantic basis for the formal treatment of relative efficiency in functional languages. For a general class of “functional” computation systems, we define a family of improvement preorderings which express, in a variety of ways, when one expression is more efficient than another. The main results of this paper build on Howe’s study of equality in lazy computation systems, and are concerned with the question of when a given improvement relation is subject to the usual forms of (in)equational reasoning (so that, for example, we can improve an expression by improving any sub-expression). For a general class of computation systems we establish conditions on the operators of the language which guarantee that an improvement relation is a precongruence. In addition, for a particular higher-order nonstrict functional language, we show that any improvement relation which satisfies a simple monotonicity condition with respect to the rules of the operational semantics has the desired congruence property.

This work was partially funded by ESPRIT BRA 3124, Semantique.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computing, Imperial College, 180 Queens Gate, London, UK, SW7 2BZ

    David Sands

Authors
  1. David Sands
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computing, The University, Glasgow, G12 8QQ, Scotland

    Rogardt Heldal BSc , Carsten Kehler Holst cand. Scient.  & Philip Wadler PhD ,  & 

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© 1992 British Computer Society

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Sands, D. (1992). Operational Theories of Improvement in Functional Languages. In: Heldal, R., Holst, C.K., Wadler, P. (eds) Functional Programming, Glasgow 1991. Workshops in Computing. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3196-0_24

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3196-0_24

  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-19760-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-3196-0

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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