Abstract

We show how explicit control strategies can be represented in a declarative (classical) metatheory as first order formulae (proof plans). Proof plans can be reasoned about (by metatheoretic theorem proving) to modify the search strategy and "executed" (by suitably "interpreting" them in terms of the deductive machinery implementation code) to prove a theorem in the object theory. The resulting architecture is uniform as it becomes possible to define a tower of metatheories, each using the same deductive machinery, each (but the lowest) being able to represent proof plans with formulae of the same shape. Plan formation at one level can be obtained by plan execution one level up. The realization of these ideas in the GETFOL system is briefly described via the implementation of a simplified version of the Boyer and Moore theorem prover.

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