Abstract
This paper describes work in progress on the design of an ML-style metalanguage FreshML for programming with recursively defined functions on user-defined, concrete data types whose constructors may involve variable binding. Up to operational equivalence, values of such FreshML data types can faithfully encode terms modulo α-conversion for a wide range of object languages in a straightforward fashion. The design of FreshML is ‘semantically driven’, in that it arises from the model of variable binding in set theory with atoms given by the authors in [7]. The language has a type constructor for abstractions over names ( = atoms) and facilities for declaring locally fresh names. Moreover, recursive definitions can use a form of pattern-matching on bound names in abstractions. The crucial point is that the FreshML type system ensures that these features can only be used in well-typed programs in ways that are insensitive to renaming of bound names.
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Pitts, A.M., Gabbay, M.J. (2000). A Metalanguage for Programming with Bound Names Modulo Renaming. In: Backhouse, R., Oliveira, J.N. (eds) Mathematics of Program Construction. MPC 2000. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1837. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/10722010_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/10722010_15
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