The π-calculus offers an attractive basis for concurrent programming. It is small, elegant, and well studied, and supports (via simple encodings) a wide range of high-level constructs including data structures, higher-order functional programming, concurrent control structures, and objects. Moreover, familiar type systems for the -calculus have direct counterparts in the π-calculus, yielding strong, static typing for a high-level language using the π-calculus as its core. This paper describes Pict, a strongly-typed concurrent programming language constructed in terms of an explicitly-typed-calculus core language.

The FLINT project at Yale aims to build a state-of-the-art systems environment for modern typesafe languages. One important component of the FLINT system is a high-performance type-directed compiler for SML'97 (extended with higher-order modules). The FLINT/ML compiler provides several new capabilities that are not available in other type-based compilers: ffl type-directed compilation is carried over across the higher-order module boundaries; ffl recursive and mutable data objects can use unboxed representations without incurring expensive runtime cost on heavily polymorphic code; ffl parameterized modules (functors) can be selectively specialized, just as normal polymorphic functions; ffl new type representations are used to reduce the cost of type manipulation thus the compilation time. This paper gives an overview of these novel aspects, and a preliminary report on the current status of the implementation. 1 Introduction The FLINT project at Yale aims to build a state-of-the-ar...

We present a type theory for higher-order modules that accounts for many central issues in module system design, including translucency, applicativity, generativity, and modules as first-class values. Our type system harmonizes design elements from previous work, resulting in a simple, economical account of modular programming. The main unifying principle is the treatment of abstraction mechanisms as computational effects. Our language is the first to provide a complete and practical formalization of all of these critical issues in module system design.

A simple implementation of an SML-like module system is presented as a module parameterized by a base language and its type-checker. This implementation is useful both as a detailed tutorial on the Harper-Lillibridge-Leroy module system and its implementation, and as a constructive demonstration of the applicability of that module system to a wide range of programming languages.

Module systems are a powerful, practical tool for managing the complexity of large software systems. Previous attempts to formulate a type-theoretic foundation for modular programming have been based on existential, dependent, or manifest types. These approaches can be distinguished by their use of different quantifiers to package the operations that a module exports together with appropriate implementation types. In each case, the underlying type theory is simple and elegant, but significant and sometimes complex extensions are needed to account for features that are im- portant in practical systems, such as separate compilation and propagation of type information between modules. This paper presents a simple type-theoretic fi'amework for modular programming using parameterized signatmes. The use of quantifiers is treated as a necessary, but independent concern. Using familiar concepts of polymorphism, the resulting module system is easy to understaud and admits true separate compilation. It is also very powerful, supporting high-order, polymorphic, and first-class modules without further extension.

We present an internal language with equivalent expressive power to Standard ML, and discuss its formalization in LF and the machine-checked verification of its type safety in Twelf. The internal language is intended to serve as the target of elaboration in an elaborative semantics for Standard ML in the style of Harper and Stone. Therefore, it includes all the programming mechanisms necessary to implement Standard ML, including translucent modules, abstraction, polymorphism, higher kinds, references, exceptions, recursive types, and recursive functions. Our successful formalization of the proof involved a careful interplay between the precise formulations of the various mechanisms, and required the invention of new representation and proof techniques of general interest.

MLis as tatically typed programming language thatis stwR for the consGHw[URY of boths mall and large programs "Programming in thes mall"is captured by StandardML Core language. "Programming in the large" is captured by Modules language that provides consN1N1N for organisw[ related Core language definitions intos elf-contained modules with desAA11w[ e interfaces While the Core is usA to expres details ofalgorithms and data sawRARNw[U Modules is use toexpres the overalla chitecture of asYG wares ysewA In Standard ML, modular programs mus have asANH1Yw hierarchicalslwN---HA1w the dependency between modules can never be cyclic. In particular, definitions of mutuallyrecursA e Core types and values that aris frequently in practice, can neverswN module boundaries This limitation compromisU modular programming, forcing the programmer to merge conceptually (i.e. architecturally) disural modules We prop os a practical and sndwN extensNY of the Modules language thatcaters for cyclic dependencies between both types andterms defined inswHAUYw modules OurdesEH leverages exissH features of the language,s upports stsU---H compilation of mutually recursw e modules and is eas to implement.

The programming language Standard ML is an amalgam of two, largely orthogonal, languages. The Core language expresses details of algorithms and data structures. The Modules language expresses the modular architecture of a software system. Both languages are statically typed, with their static and dynamic semantics specified by a formal definition.

This paper presents a purely syntactic account of type generativity and sharing -- two key mechanisms in the SML module system -- and shows its equivalence with the traditional stamp-based description of these mechanisms. This syntactic description recasts the SML module system in a more abstract, type-theoretic framework.

The ease of understanding, maintaining, and developing a large program depends crucially on how it is divided up into modules. The possible ways a program can be divided are constrained by the available modular programming facilities ("module system") of the programming language being used. Experience with the Standard-ML module system has shown the usefulness of functions mapping modules to modules and modules with module subcomponents. For example, functions over modules permit abstract data types (ADTs) to be parameterized by other ADTs, and submodules permit modules to be organized hierarchically. Module systems with such facilities are called higher-order, by analogy with higher-order functions. Previous higher-order module systems can be classified as either opaque or transparent. Opaque systems totally obscure information about the identity of type components of modules, often resulting in overly abstract types. This loss of type identities precludes most interesting uses of hi...