Type inference is the compile-time process of reconstructing missing type information in a program based on the usage of its variables. ML and Haskell are two languages where this aspect of compilation has enjoyed some popularity, allowing type information to be omitted while static type checking is still performed. Type inference may be expected to have some application in the prototyping and scripting languages which are becoming increasingly popular. A difficulty with type inference is the confusing and sometimes counter-intuitive diagnostics produced by the type checker as a result of type errors. A modification of the Hindley-Milner type inference algorithm is presented, which allows the specific reasoning which led to a program variable having a particular type to be recorded for type explanation. This approach is close to the intuitive process used in practice for debugging type errors. 1 Introduction Type inference refers to the compile-time process of reconstructing missing t...

The research presented in this thesis is about the design and implementation of Naira, a parallel, parallelising compiler for a rich, purely functional programming language. The source language of the compiler is a subset of Haskell 1.2. The front end of Naira is written entirely in the Haskell subset being compiled. Naira has been successfully parallelised and it is the largest successfully parallelised Haskell program having achieved good absolute speedups on a network of SUN workstations. Having the same basic structure as other production compilers of functional languages, Naira's parallelisation technology should carry forward to other functional language compilers. The back end of Naira is written in C and generates parallel code in the C language which is envisioned to be run on distributed-memory machines. The code generator is based on a novel compilation scheme specified using a restricted form of Milner's ß-calculus which achieves asynchronous communication. We present the f...