We define a dependent programming language in which programmers can define and compute with domain-specific logics, such as an access-control logic that statically prevents unauthorized access to controlled resources. Our language permits programmers to define logics using the LF logical framework, whose notion of binding and scope facilitates the representation of the consequence relation of a logic, and to compute with logics by writing functional programs over LF terms. These functional programs can be used to compute values at run-time, and also to compute types at compiletime. In previous work, we studied a simply-typed framework for representing and computing with variable binding [LICS 2008]. In this paper, we generalize our previous type theory to account for dependently typed inference rules, which are necessary to adequately represent domain-specific logics, and we present examples of using our type theory for certified software and mechanized metatheory.

Types are the central organizing principle of the theory of programming languages. Language features are manifestations of type structure. The syntax of a language is governed by the constructs that define its types, and its semantics is determined by the interactions among those constructs. The soundness of a language design—the absence of ill-defined programs— follows naturally. The purpose of this book is to explain this remark. A variety of programming language features are analyzed in the unifying framework of type theory. A language feature is defined by its statics, the rules governing the use of the feature in a program, and its dynamics, the rules defining how programs using this feature are to be executed. The concept of safety emerges as the coherence of the statics and the dynamics of a language. In this way we establish a foundation for the study of programming languages. But why these particular methods? Though it would require a book in itself to substantiate this assertion, the type-theoretic approach

This paper is part of a line of work on using the logical techniques of polarity and focusing to design a dependent programming language, with particular emphasis on programming with deductive systems such as programming languages and proof theories. Polarity emphasizes the distinction between positive types, which classify data, and negative types, which classify computation. In previous work, we showed how to use Zeilberger’s higher-order formulation of focusing to integrate a positive function space for representing variable binding, an essential tool for specifying logical systems, with a standard negative computational function space. However, our previous work considers only a simply-typed language. The central technical contribution of the present paper is to extend higher-order focusing with a form of dependency that we call positively dependent types: We allow dependency on positive data, but not negative computation, and we present the syntax of dependent pair and function types using an iterated inductive definition, mapping positive data to types, which gives an account of type-level computation. We construct our language inside the dependently typed programming language Agda 2, making essential use of coinductive types and induction-recursion.

One lesson learned painfully over the past twenty years is the perilous interaction of Curry-style typing with evaluation order and side-effects. This led eventually to the value restriction on polymorphism in ML, as well as, more recently, to similar artifacts in type systems for ML with intersection and union refinement types. For example, some of the traditional subtyping laws for unions and intersections are unsound in the presence of effects, while union-elimination requires an evaluation context restriction in addition to the value restriction on intersection-introduction. Our aim is to show that rather than being ad hoc artifacts, phenomena such as the value and evaluation context restrictions arise naturally in type systems for effectful languages, out of principles of duality. Beginning with a review of recent work on the Curry-Howard interpretation of focusing proofs as pattern-matching programs,

Focusing, introduced by Jean-Marc Andreoli in the context of classical linear logic, defines a normal form for sequent calculus derivations that cuts down on the number of possible derivations by eagerly applying invertible rules and grouping sequences of non-invertible rules. A focused sequent calculus is defined relative to some non-focused sequent calculus; focalization is the property that every non-focused derivation can be transformed into a focused derivation. In this paper, we present a focused sequent calculus for polarized propositional intuitionistic logic and prove the focalization property relative to a standard presentation of propositional intuitionistic logic. Compared to existing approaches, the proof is quite concise, depending only on the internal soundness and completeness of the focused logic. In turn, both of these properties can be established (and mechanically verified) by structural induction in the style of Pfenning’s structural cut elimination without the need for any tedious and repetitious invertibility lemmas. The proof of cut admissibility for the focused system, which establishes internal soundness, is not particularly novel. The proof of identity expansion, which establishes internal completeness, is the principal contribution of this work. 1

strategies in the sequent calculus

This paper is part of a line of work on using the logical techniques of polarity and focusing to design a dependent programming language, with particular emphasis on programming with deductive systems such as programming languages and proof theories. Polarity emphasizes the distinction between positive types, which classify data, and negative types, which classify computation. In previous work, we showed how to use Zeilberger’s higher-order formulation of focusing to integrate a positive function space for representing variable binding, an essential tool for specifying logical systems, with a standard negative computational function space. However, our previous work considers only a simply-typed language. The central technical contribution of the present paper is to extend higher-order focusing with a form of dependency that we call positively dependent types: We allow dependency on positive data, but not negative computation. Additionally, we present the syntax of dependent pair and function types using an iterated inductive definition, mapping positive data to types, which gives an account of type-level computation. We construct our language inside the dependently typed programming language Agda 2, making essential use of coinductive types and induction-recursion.

Abstract. In previous work, the author gave a higher-order analysis of focusing proofs (in the sense of Andreoli’s search strategy), with a role for infinitary rules very similar in structure to Buchholz’s Ω-rule. Among other benefits, this “pattern-based ” description of focusing simplifies the cut-elimination procedure, allowing cuts to be eliminated in a connective-generic way. However, interpreted literally, it is problematic as a representation technique for proofs, because of the difficulty of inspecting and/or exhaustively searching over these infinite objects. In the spirit of infinitary proof theory, this paper explores a view of pattern-based focusing proofs as façons de parler, describing how to compile them down to first-order derivations through defunctionalization, Reynolds ’ program transformation. Our main result is a representation of pattern-based focusing in the Twelf logical framework, whose core type theory is too weak to directly encode infinitary rules—although this weakness directly enables so-called “higher-order abstract syntax ” encodings. By applying the systematic defunctionalization transform, not only do we retain the benefits of the higher-order focusing analysis, but we can also take advantage of HOAS within Twelf, ultimately arriving at a proof representation with surprisingly little bureaucracy. 1

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The duality of computation under focus