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1ML – core and modules united (F-ing first-class modules)

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Andreas RossbergAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 50, Issue 9

Pages 35 - 47

https://doi.org/10.1145/2858949.2784738

Published: 29 August 2015 Publication History

Abstract

ML is two languages in one: there is the core, with types and expressions, and there are modules, with signatures, structures and functors. Modules form a separate, higher-order functional language on top of the core. There are both practical and technical reasons for this stratification; yet, it creates substantial duplication in syntax and semantics, and it reduces expressiveness. For example, selecting a module cannot be made a dynamic decision. Language extensions allowing modules to be packaged up as first-class values have been proposed and implemented in different variations. However, they remedy expressiveness only to some extent, are syntactically cumbersome, and do not alleviate redundancy. We propose a redesign of ML in which modules are truly first-class values, and core and module layer are unified into one language. In this "1ML", functions, functors, and even type constructors are one and the same construct; likewise, no distinction is made between structures, records, or tuples. Or viewed the other way round, everything is just ("a mode of use of") modules. Yet, 1ML does not require dependent types, and its type structure is expressible in terms of plain System Fω, in a minor variation of our F-ing modules approach. We introduce both an explicitly typed version of 1ML, and an extension with Damas/Milner-style implicit quantification. Type inference for this language is not complete, but, we argue, not substantially worse than for Standard ML. An alternative view is that 1ML is a user-friendly surface syntax for System Fω that allows combining term and type abstraction in a more compositional manner than the bare calculus.

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Cited By

MacQueen DHarper RReppy J(2020)The history of Standard MLProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/33863364:HOPL(1-100)Online publication date: 12-Jun-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3386336
CRARY K(2020)A focused solution to the avoidance problemJournal of Functional Programming10.1017/S095679682000022230Online publication date: 6-Aug-2020
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956796820000222
Eisenberg RDuboc GWeirich SLee D(2021)An existential crisis resolved: type inference for first-class existential typesProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/34735695:ICFP(1-29)Online publication date: 19-Aug-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3473569
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

1ML – core and modules united (F-ing first-class modules)
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. Formal language definitions
    2. General programming languages
      1. Language features
2. Theory of computation
  1. Formal languages and automata theory
  2. Semantics and reasoning
    1. Program constructs

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Published In

cover image ACM SIGPLAN Notices

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 50, Issue 9

ICFP '15

September 2015

436 pages

ISSN:0362-1340

EISSN:1558-1160

DOI:10.1145/2858949

Editor:
Andy Gill
University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS

Issue’s Table of Contents

ICFP 2015: Proceedings of the 20th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Functional Programming
August 2015
436 pages
ISBN:9781450336697
DOI:10.1145/2784731
General Chair:
Kathleen Fisher
Tufts University, USA
,
Program Chair:
John Reppy
University of Chicago, USA

Copyright © 2015 ACM.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 29 August 2015

Published in SIGPLAN Volume 50, Issue 9

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Cited By

MacQueen DHarper RReppy J(2020)The history of Standard MLProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/33863364:HOPL(1-100)Online publication date: 12-Jun-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3386336
CRARY K(2020)A focused solution to the avoidance problemJournal of Functional Programming10.1017/S095679682000022230Online publication date: 6-Aug-2020
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956796820000222
Eisenberg RDuboc GWeirich SLee D(2021)An existential crisis resolved: type inference for first-class existential typesProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/34735695:ICFP(1-29)Online publication date: 19-Aug-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3473569
Parreaux L(2020)The simple essence of algebraic subtyping: principal type inference with subtyping made easy (functional pearl)Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/34090064:ICFP(1-28)Online publication date: 3-Aug-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3409006
Downen PSullivan ZAriola ZPeyton Jones S(2019)Codata in ActionProgramming Languages and Systems10.1007/978-3-030-17184-1_5(119-146)Online publication date: 6-Apr-2019
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17184-1_5
Amin NRompf T(2017)Type soundness proofs with definitional interpretersACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3093333.300986652:1(666-679)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3093333.3009866
Amin NRompf TCastagna GGordon A(2017)Type soundness proofs with definitional interpretersProceedings of the 44th ACM SIGPLAN Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages10.1145/3009837.3009866(666-679)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3009837.3009866
Rompf TAmin N(2016)Type soundness for dependent object types (DOT)ACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3022671.298400851:10(624-641)Online publication date: 19-Oct-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3022671.2984008
Rompf TAmin NVisser ESmaragdakis Y(2016)Type soundness for dependent object types (DOT)Proceedings of the 2016 ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications10.1145/2983990.2984008(624-641)Online publication date: 19-Oct-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2983990.2984008
Inoue JKiselyov OKameyama YErwig MRompf T(2016)Staging beyond terms: prospects and challengesProceedings of the 2016 ACM SIGPLAN Workshop on Partial Evaluation and Program Manipulation10.1145/2847538.2847548(103-108)Online publication date: 11-Jan-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2847538.2847548
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