Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

An Abstract, Reusable, and Extensible Programming Language Design Architecture

  • Chapter
In Search of Elegance in the Theory and Practice of Computation

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 8000))

Abstract

There are a few basic computational concepts that are at the core of all programming languages. The exact elements making out such a set of concepts determine (1) the specific nature of the computational services such a language is designed for, (2) for what users it is intended, and (3) on what devices and in what environment it is to be used. It is therefore possible to propose a set of basic building blocks and operations thereon as combination procedures to enable programming software by specifying desired tasks using a tool-box of generic constructs and meta-operations. Syntax specified through LALR(k) grammar technology can be enhanced with greater recognizing power thanks to a simple augmentation of yacc technology. Upon this basis, a set of implementable formal operational semantics constructs may be simply designed and generated (syntax and semantics) à la carte, by simple combination of its desired features. The work presented here, and the tools derived from it, may be viewed as a tool box for generating language implementations with a desired set of features. It eases the automatic practical generation of programming language pioneered by Peter Landin’s SECD Machine. What is overviewed constitutes a practical computational algebra extending the polymorphically typed λ-Calculus with object/classes and monoid comprehensions. This paper describes a few of the most salient parts of such a system, stressing most specifically any innovative features—formal syntax and semantics. It may be viewed as a high-level tour of a few reusable programming language design techniques prototyped in the form of a set of composable abstract machine constructs and operations.

Thanks to Val Tannen for his patience, Nabil Layaïda for his comments, and the anonymous referee for catching many glitches and giving good advice in general.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Aït-Kaci, H.: An Abstract and Reusable Programming Language Architecture. keynote presentation. In: LDTA 2003 (April 6, 2003)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Landin, P.J.: The next 700 programming languages. Communications of the ACM 9(3), 157–166 (1966)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  3. Sethi, R.: Programming Languages—Concepts and Constructs, 2nd edn. Addison-Wesley, Reading (1996)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  4. Johnson, S.: Yacc: Yet another compiler compiler. Computer Science Technical Report 32, AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ (1975); Reprinted in the 4.3BSD Unix Programmer’s Manual, Supplementary Documents 1, PS1:15. UC Berkeley (1986)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Buneman, P., Libkin, L., Suciu, D., Tannen, V., Wong, L.: Comprehension syntax. ACM SIGMOD Record 23(1), 87–96 (1994)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Buneman, P., Naqvi, S., Tannen, V., Wong, L.: Principles of programming with complex objects and collection types. Theoretical Computer Science 149(1), 3–48 (1995)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  7. Brodky, A., Segal, V.E., Chen, J., Exarkhopoulo, P.A.: The CCUBE system object-oriented database system. In: Ramakrishnan, R., Stuckey, P.J. (eds.) Constraints and Databases, pp. 245–277. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell (1998); Special Issue on Constraints: An International Journal 2(3&4) (1997)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Fegaras, L., Maier, D.: Optimizing object queries using an effective calculus. ACM Transactions on Database Systems 25(4), 457–516 (2000)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  9. Aït-Kaci, H.: An introduction to LIFE—Programming with Logic, Inheritance, Functions, and Equations. In: Miller, D. (ed.) Proceedings of the International Symposium on Logic Programming, pp. 52–68. MIT Press (October 1993)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Aït-Kaci, H., Di Cosmo, R.: Compiling order-sorted feature term unification. PRL Technical Note 7, Digital Paris Research Laboratory, Rueil-Malmaison, France (December 1993)

    Google Scholar 

  11. DeRemer, F., Pennello, T.: Efficient computation of LALR(1) look-ahead sets. ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems 4(4), 615–649 (1982)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  12. Park, J., Choe, K.M., Chang, C.: A new analysis of LALR formalisms. ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems 7(1), 159–175 (1985)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  13. Landin, P.J.: The mechanical evaluation of expressions. Computer Journal 6(4), 308–320 (1963)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Cardelli, L.: The functional abstract machine. Technical Report TR-107, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey (May 1983)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Banâtre, J.P., Le Métayer, D.: A new computational model and its discipline of programming. INRIA Technical Report 566, Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique, Le Chesnay, France (1986)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Berry, G., Boudol, G.: The chemical abstract machine. In: Proceedings of the 17th ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, POPL 1990, pp. 81–94. ACM Press, New York (1990)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  17. Aït-Kaci, H.: Warren’s Abstract Machine—A Tutorial Reconstruction. Logic Programming. MIT Press, Cambridge (1991)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Grust, T.: Monad comprehensions—a versatile representation for queries. In: Gray, P., Kerschberg, L., King, P., Poulovassilis, A. (eds.) The Functional Approach to Data Management: Modeling, Analyzing and Integrating Heterogeneous Data. Springer (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Bothner, P.: XQuery tutorial

    Google Scholar 

  20. Nic, M., Jirat, J.: XPath tutorial

    Google Scholar 

  21. Gesbert, N., Genevès, P., Layaïda, N.: Parametric polymorphism and semantic subtyping: the logical connection. In: Proceedings of the 16th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP 2011), Tokyo Japan, September 19-21, pp. 107–116. Association for Computing Machinery, New York (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Gesbert, N., Genevès, P., Layaïda, N.: Parametric polymorphism and semantic subtyping: the logical connection. SIGPLAN Notices 46(9) (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Bierman, G.M., Gordon, A.D., Hriţcu, C., Langworthy, D.: Semantic subtyping with an SMT solver. In: Proceedings of the 15th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Functional Programmingm (ICFP 2010), Baltimore, MA USA, September 27-29, pp. 105–116. Association for Computing Machinery, New York (2010)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  24. Bierman, G.M., Gordon, A.D., Hriţcu, C., Langworthy, D.: Semantic subtyping with an SMT solver. Journal of Functional Programming, 1–75 (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Jaffar, J., Maher, M.J.: Constraint Logic Programming: A survey. Journal of Logic Programming 19/20, 503–581 (1994)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  26. Leroy, X.: Unboxed objects and polymorphic typing. In: Proceedings of the 19th Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages (POPL 1992), pp. 177–188. Association for Computing Machinary (1992)

    Google Scholar 

  27. Aho, A.V., Sethi, R., Ullman, J.D.: Compilers—Principles, Techniques, and Tools. Addison-Wesley (1986)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Choe, K.M.: Personal communication. Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul, South Korea (December 2000), choecompiler.kaist.ac.kr

  29. Aït-Kaci, H.: A generic XML-generating metacompiler. Part of the documentation of the \(\mathfrak{Jacc}\)package (July 2008)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Cardelli, L.: Typeful programming. In: Neuhold, E.J., Paul, M. (eds.) Formal Description of Programming Concepts. Springer (1991)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Hentenryck, P.: The OPL Optimization Programming Language. The MIT Press (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  32. Wong, L.: Querying Nested Collections. PhD thesis, University of Pennsylvania (Computer and Information Science) (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  33. Fegaras, L.: An experimental optimizer for OQL. Technical Report TR-CSE-97-007, University of Texas at Arlington (May 1997)

    Google Scholar 

  34. Visser, E.: Syntax Definition for Language Prototyping. PhD thesis, Faculteit Wiskunde, Informatics, Natuurkunde en Strenkunde, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (September 1997)

    Google Scholar 

  35. Aho, A.V., Hopcroft, J.E., Ullman, J.D.: The Design and Analysis of Computer Algorithms. Addison-Wesley, Reading (1974)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  36. Plotkin, G.D.: A structural approach to operational semantics. Technical Report DAIMI FN-19, University of Århus, Århus, Denmark (1981)

    Google Scholar 

  37. Plotkin, G.D.: A structural approach to operational semantics. Journal of Logic and Algebraic Programming 60-61, 17–139 (2004)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  38. Dershowitz, N.: A taste of rewrite systems. In: Lauer, P.E. (ed.) Functional Programming, Concurrency, Simulation and Automated Reasoning. LNCS, vol. 693, pp. 199–228. Springer, Heidelberg (1993)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  39. Knuth, D.E., Bendix, P.B.: Simple word problems in universal algebras. In: Leech, J. (ed.) Computational Problems in Abstract Algebra, pp. 263–297. Pergamon Press, Oxford (1970); Reprinted in Automatic Reasoning 2, pp. 342–276. Springer (1983)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Villeurbanne, France

    Hassan Aït-Kaci

Authors
  1. Hassan Aït-Kaci
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania, 3330 Walnut St., 19104, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Val Tannen

  2. School of Computing, National University of Singapore, 13 Computing Drive, 117417, Singapore, Singapore

    Limsoon Wong

  3. School of Informatics, The University of Edinburgh, 10 Crichton Street, EH8 9AB, Edinburgh, UK

    Leonid Libkin , Wenfei Fan  & Michael Fourman ,  & 

  4. Department of Computer Science, University of California, 1156 High Street, 95064, Santa Cruz, CA, USA

    Wang-Chiew Tan

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Aït-Kaci, H. (2013). An Abstract, Reusable, and Extensible Programming Language Design Architecture. In: Tannen, V., Wong, L., Libkin, L., Fan, W., Tan, WC., Fourman, M. (eds) In Search of Elegance in the Theory and Practice of Computation. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8000. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-41660-6_6

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-41660-6_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-41659-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-41660-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation