A Syntactic Theory of Dynamic Binding

A Syntactic Theory of Dynamic Binding (1997)

by Luc Moreau

Venue:	Higher-Order and Symbolic Computation
Citations:	26 - 1 self

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Datum	Value	Source
TITLE	A Syntactic Theory of Dynamic Binding	user correction - Legacy Corrections
AUTHOR NAME	Luc Moreau	SVM HeaderParse 0.1
AUTHOR AFFIL	University of Southampton	SVM HeaderParse 0.2
ABSTRACT	. Dynamic binding, which has always been associated with Lisp, is still semantically obscure to many. Although largely replaced by lexical scoping, not only does dynamic binding remain an interesting and expressive programming technique in specialised circumstances, but also it is a key notion in semantics. This paper presents a syntactic theory that enables the programmer to perform equational reasoning on programs using dynamic binding. The theory is proved to be sound and complete with respect to derivations allowed on programs in "dynamic-environment passing style". From this theory, we derive a sequential evaluation function in a context-rewriting system. Then, we exhibit the power and usefulness of dynamic binding in two different ways. First, we prove that dynamic binding adds expressiveness to a purely functional language. Second, we show that dynamic binding is an essential notion in semantics that can be used to define the semantics of exceptions. Afterwards, we further refin...	user correction - Legacy Corrections
YEAR	1997	user correction - Legacy Corrections
VENUE	Higher-Order and Symbolic Computation	INFERENCE
VENUE TYPE	JOURNAL	INFERENCE
PAGES	727--741	INFERENCE
VOLUME	11	INFERENCE
CITATIONS	44 found	ParsCit 1.0