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Latent Effects for Reusable Language Components

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Programming Languages and Systems (APLAS 2021)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 13008))

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Abstract

The development of programming languages can be quite complicated and costly. Hence, much effort has been devoted to the modular definition of language features that can be reused in various combinations to define new languages and experiment with their semantics. A notable outcome of these efforts is the algebra-based “datatypes à la carte” (DTC) approach. When combined with algebraic effects, DTC can model a wide range of common language features. Unfortunately, the current state of the art does not cover modular definitions of advanced control-flow mechanisms that defer execution to an appropriate point, such as call-by-name and call-by-need evaluation, as well as (multi-)staging.

This paper defines latent effects, a generic class of such control-flow mechanisms. We demonstrate how function abstractions, lazy computations and a MetaML-like staging can all be expressed in a modular fashion using latent effects, and how they can be combined in various ways to obtain complex semantics. We provide a full Haskell implementation of our effects and handlers with a range of examples.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://github.com/birthevdb/Latent-Effect-and-Handlers.git.

  2. 2.

    The function is short for \( fmap \circ const \).

  3. 3.

    https://github.com/birthevdb/Latent-Effect-and-Handlers.git.

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Acknowledgments

This work has been supported by EPSRC grant number EP/S028129/1 on ‘Scoped Contextual Operations and Effects’, by the NWO VENI project on ‘Composable and Safe-by-Construction Programming Language Definitions’ (VI.Veni.192.259), by FWO project G095917N, and by KU Leuven project C14/20/079.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Birthe van den Berg & Tom Schrijvers

  2. Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Casper Bach Poulsen

  3. Imperial College London, London, UK

    Nicolas Wu

Authors
  1. Birthe van den Berg
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  2. Tom Schrijvers
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  3. Casper Bach Poulsen
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  4. Nicolas Wu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Birthe van den Berg .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Korea University, Seoul, Korea (Republic of)

    Hakjoo Oh

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van den Berg, B., Schrijvers, T., Poulsen, C.B., Wu, N. (2021). Latent Effects for Reusable Language Components. In: Oh, H. (eds) Programming Languages and Systems. APLAS 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 13008. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89051-3_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89051-3_11

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-89050-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-89051-3

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