research-article

Practical affine types

Authors:

Riccardo PucellaAuthors Info & Claims

POPL '11: Proceedings of the 38th annual ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT symposium on Principles of programming languages

Pages 447 - 458

https://doi.org/10.1145/1926385.1926436

Published: 26 January 2011 Publication History

Abstract

Alms is a general-purpose programming language that supports practical affine types. To offer the expressiveness of Girard's linear logic while keeping the type system light and convenient, Alms uses expressive kinds that minimize notation while maximizing polymorphism between affine and unlimited types.

A key feature of Alms is the ability to introduce abstract affine types via ML-style signature ascription. In Alms, an interface can impose stiffer resource usage restrictions than the principal usage restrictions of its implementation. This form of sealing allows the type system to naturally and directly express a variety of resource management protocols from special-purpose type systems.

We present two pieces of evidence to demonstrate the validity of our design goals. First, we introduce a prototype implementation of Alms and discuss our experience programming in the language. Second, we establish the soundness of the core language. We also use the core model to prove a principal kinding theorem.

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Cited By

van Rooij OKrebbers R(2025)Affect: An Affine Type and Effect SystemProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/37048419:POPL(126-154)Online publication date: 9-Jan-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3704841
Saffrich HNishida YThiemann P(2024)Law and Order for Typestate with BorrowingProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36897638:OOPSLA2(1475-1503)Online publication date: 8-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3689763
Tang WHillerström DLindley SMorris J(2024)Soundly Handling LinearityProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36328968:POPL(1600-1628)Online publication date: 5-Jan-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3632896
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Index Terms

Practical affine types
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. General programming languages
      1. Language features

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cover image ACM Conferences

POPL '11: Proceedings of the 38th annual ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT symposium on Principles of programming languages

January 2011

652 pages

ISBN:9781450304900

DOI:10.1145/1926385

General Chair:
Thomas Ball
Microsoft Research, USA
,
Program Chair:
Mooly Sagiv
Tel Aviv University, Israel

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 46, Issue 1
POPL '11
January 2011
624 pages
ISSN:0362-1340
EISSN:1558-1160
DOI:10.1145/1925844
Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2011 ACM.

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Published: 26 January 2011

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POPL '11: The 38th Annual ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages

January 26 - 28, 2011

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Cited By

van Rooij OKrebbers R(2025)Affect: An Affine Type and Effect SystemProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/37048419:POPL(126-154)Online publication date: 9-Jan-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3704841
Saffrich HNishida YThiemann P(2024)Law and Order for Typestate with BorrowingProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36897638:OOPSLA2(1475-1503)Online publication date: 8-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3689763
Tang WHillerström DLindley SMorris J(2024)Soundly Handling LinearityProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36328968:POPL(1600-1628)Online publication date: 5-Jan-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3632896
MATSUDA KWANG M(2024) Sparcl : A language for partially invertible computation Journal of Functional Programming10.1017/S095679682300012634Online publication date: 26-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956796823000126
Kan SChen ZSanán DLiu Y(2024)Formally understanding Rust’s ownership and borrowing system at the memory levelFormal Methods in System Design10.1007/s10703-024-00460-364:1(200-236)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2024
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Almeida BMordido AVasconcelos V(2023)Kind Inference for the FreeST Programming LanguageElectronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science10.4204/EPTCS.378.1378(1-13)Online publication date: 13-Apr-2023
https://doi.org/10.4204/EPTCS.378.1
Thiemann P(2023)Intrinsically Typed Sessions with Callbacks (Functional Pearl)Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36078547:ICFP(711-739)Online publication date: 31-Aug-2023
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Gonnord LHenrio LMorel LRadanne G(2023)A Survey on Parallelism and DeterminismACM Computing Surveys10.1145/356452955:10(1-28)Online publication date: 2-Feb-2023
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Marshall DVollmer MOrchard D(2022)Linearity and Uniqueness: An Entente CordialeProgramming Languages and Systems10.1007/978-3-030-99336-8_13(346-375)Online publication date: 5-Apr-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-030-99336-8_13
Moon BEades III HOrchard D(2021)Graded Modal Dependent Type TheoryProgramming Languages and Systems10.1007/978-3-030-72019-3_17(462-490)Online publication date: 23-Mar-2021
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