M-LISP: A Representation-Independent Dialect of LISP with Reduction Semantics (1992)
| Venue: | ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems |
| Citations: | 21 - 2 self |
BibTeX
@ARTICLE{Muller92m-lisp:a,
author = {Robert Muller},
title = {M-LISP: A Representation-Independent Dialect of LISP with Reduction Semantics},
journal = {ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems},
year = {1992},
volume = {14},
pages = {589--616}
}
Years of Citing Articles
Bookmark
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
OpenURL
Abstract
In this paper we introduce M-LISP, a simple new dialect of LISP which is designed with an eye toward reconciling LISP's metalinguistic power with the structural style of operational semantics advocated by Plotkin [Plo75]. We begin by reviewing the original denition of LISP [McC61] in an attempt to clarify the source of its metalinguistic power. We nd that it arises from a problematic clause in this denition. We then dene the abstract syntax and operational semantics of M-LISP, essentially a hybrid of M-expression LISP and Scheme. Next, we tie the operational semantics to the corresponding equational logic. As usual, provable equality in the logic implies operational equality. Having established this framework we then extend M-LISP with the metalinguistic eval and reify operators (the latter is a non-strict operator which converts its argument to its metalanguage representation.) These operators encapsulate the metalinguistic representation conversions that occur globall...
