Abstract
Historically, the LCF tradition of interactive theorem proving was tied to the read-eval-print loop, with sequential and synchronous evaluation of prover commands given on the command-line. This user-interface technology was adequate when R. Milner introduced his LCF proof assistant in the 1970-ies, but it severely limits the potential of current multicore hardware and advanced IDE front-ends.
Isabelle/PIDE breaks this loop and retrofits the read-eval-print phases into an asynchronous model of document-oriented proof processing. Instead of feeding a sequence of individual commands into the prover process, the primary interface works via edits over a family of document versions. Execution is implicit and managed by the prover on its own account in a timeless and stateless manner. Various aspects of interactive proof checking are scheduled according to requirements determined by the front-end perspective on the proof document, while making adequate use of the CPU resources on multicore hardware on the back-end.
Recent refinements of Isabelle/PIDE provide an explicit concept of asynchronous print functions over existing proof states. This allows to integrate long-running or potentially non-terminating tools into the document-model. Applications range from traditional proof state output (which may consume substantial time in interactive development) to automated provers and dis-provers that report on existing proof document content (e.g. Sledgehammer, Nitpick, Quickcheck in Isabelle/HOL). Moreover, it is possible to integrate query operations via additional GUI panels with separate input and output (e.g. for Sledgehammer or find-theorems). Thus the Prover IDE provides continuous proof processing, augmented by add-on tools that help the user to continue writing proofs.
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Wenzel, M. (2014). Asynchronous User Interaction and Tool Integration in Isabelle/PIDE. In: Klein, G., Gamboa, R. (eds) Interactive Theorem Proving. ITP 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8558. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08970-6_33
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08970-6_33
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