A tension in language design has been between simple semantics on the one hand, and rich possibilities for side-effects, exception handling and so on on the other. The introduction of monads has made a large step towards reconciling these alternatives. First proposed by Moggi as a way of structuring semantic descriptions, they were adopted by Wadler to structure Haskell programs, and now offer a general technique for delimiting the scope of effects, thus reconciling referential transparency and imperative operations within one programming language. Monads have been used to solve long-standing problems such as adding pointers and assignment, inter-language working, and exception handling to Haskell, without compromising its purely functional semantics. The course will introduce monads, effects and related notions, and exemplify their applications in programming (Haskell) and in compilation (MLj). The course will present typed metalanguages for monads and related categorica...

Models of intuitionistic linear logic also provide models of Moggi's computational metalanguage. We use the adjoint presentation of these models and the associated adjoint calculus to show that three translations, due mainly to Moggi, of the lambda calculus into the computational metalanguage (direct, call-by-name and call-by-value) correspond exactly to three translations, due mainly to Girard, of intuitionistic logic into intuitionistic linear logic. We also consider extending these results to languages with recursion. 1. Introduction Two of the most significant developments in semantics during the last decade are Girard's linear logic [10] and Moggi's computational metalanguage [14]. Any student of these formalisms will suspect that there are significant connections between the two, despite their apparent differences. The intuitionistic fragment of linear logic (ILL) may be modelled in a linear model -- a symmetric monoidal closed category with a comonad ! which satisfies some extr...

We formalize a partial evaluator for Eugenio Moggi's computational metalanguage. This formalization gives an evaluation-order independent view of binding-time analysis and program specialization, including a proper treatment of call unfolding, and enables us to express the essence of "control-based binding-time improvements" for let expressions. Specifically,

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For a number of programming languages, among them Eiffel, C, Java, and Ruby, Hoare-style logics and dynamic logics have been developed. In these logics, pre- and postconditions are typically formulated using potentially effectful programs. In order to ensure that these pre- and postconditions behave like logical formulae (that is, enjoy some kind of referential transparency), a notion of purity is needed. Here, we introduce a generic framework for reasoning about purity and effects. Effects are modelled abstractly and axiomatically, using Moggi’s idea of encapsulation of effects as monads. We introduce a dynamic logic (from which, as usual, a Hoare logic can be derived) whose logical formulae are pure programs in a strong sense. We formulate a set of proof rules for this logic, and prove it to be complete with respect to a categorical semantics. Using dynamic logic, we then develop a relaxed notion of purity which allows for observationally neutral effects such writing on newly allocated memory.

We present an inference system for translating programs in a PCF-like source language into a variant of Moggi's computational lambda calculus. This translation combines a simple strictness analysis with its associated optimising transformations into a single system. The correctness of the translation is established using a logical relation between the denotational semantics of the source and target languages. 1 Introduction 1.1 Background Strictness analysis of lazy functional programs has been studied extensively during the the last 15 years or so, usually with the justification that the results of the analysis can be used in an optimising compiler [Myc81, BHA86, Ben92]. There has, however, been surprisingly little serious work on just how the results of strictness analysis can be used as the basis for optimising transformations. This is probably because it turns out to be rather more difficult to express and justify these optimisations than one might at first imagine. Roughly speak...

. A tension in language design has been between simple semantics

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