Dylan McDermott ; Alan Mycroft - Galois connecting call-by-value and call-by-name

lmcs:11022 - Logical Methods in Computer Science, February 12, 2024, Volume 20, Issue 1 - https://doi.org/10.46298/lmcs-20(1:13)2024
Galois connecting call-by-value and call-by-nameArticle

Authors: Dylan McDermott ; Alan Mycroft

    We establish a general framework for reasoning about the relationship between call-by-value and call-by-name. In languages with computational effects, call-by-value and call-by-name executions of programs often have different, but related, observable behaviours. For example, if a program might diverge but otherwise has no effects, then whenever it terminates under call-by-value, it terminates with the same result under call-by-name. We propose a technique for stating and proving properties like these. The key ingredient is Levy's call-by-push-value calculus, which we use as a framework for reasoning about evaluation orders. We show that the call-by-value and call-by-name translations of expressions into call-by-push-value have related observable behaviour under certain conditions on computational effects, which we identify. We then use this fact to construct maps between the call-by-value and call-by-name interpretations of types, and identify further properties of effects that imply these maps form a Galois connection. These properties hold for some computational effects (such as divergence), but not others (such as mutable state). This gives rise to a general reasoning principle that relates call-by-value and call-by-name. We apply the reasoning principle to example computational effects including divergence and nondeterminism.


    Volume: Volume 20, Issue 1
    Published on: February 12, 2024
    Accepted on: January 18, 2024
    Submitted on: March 3, 2023
    Keywords: Computer Science - Programming Languages

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