Abstract

A good way of developing a correct program is to calculate it from its specification. Functional programming languages are especially suitable for this, because their referential transparency greatly helps calculation. We discuss the ideas behind program calculation, and illustrate with an example (the maximum segment sum problem). We show that calculations are driven by promotion, and that promotion properties arise from universal properties of the data types involved. 1 Context The history of computing is a story of two contrasting trends. On the one hand, the cost and cost/performance ratio of computer hardware plummets; on the other, computer software is over-complex, unreliable and almost inevitably over budget. Clearly, we have learnt how to build computers, but not yet how to program them. It is now widely accepted that ad-hoc approaches to constructing software break down as projects get more ambitious. A more formal approach, based on sound mathematical foundations, i...

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