Pattern-driven Programming in Scala

Abstract

Pattern-driven Programming in Scala by Huaxin Pang This is an experimental exploration of the pattern-driven programming paradigm-the sole use of pattern matching to determine the next instruction or execute. We define a pure pattern-driven programming language named PA-Scala by defining a subset of the Scala programming language, which restricts sequence control to the powerful pattern matching facilities in Scala. We use PA-Scala to explore the strengths and limitations of pattern-driven programming. By implementing a phrase structure grammar solver in PA-Scala, we show that pattern-driven programming can be used to solve general computation problems. We then implement a Prolog interpreter in PA-Scala, which demonstrates how resolution and unification can be implemented in PA-Scala. Finally we analyzed the possibility of parallel execution for PA-Scala, and show that pattern-driven programming also has the potential to achieve performance improvements by running pattern matching operations in parallel. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First I would like to sincerely thank my advisor, Dr. Jon Pearce, for his continuous support and technical guidance of my master's study. Dr. Jon Pearce gave me so many detailed suggestions and instructions when I needed them, which lead to the key ideas and main structure of this thesis. Also I'm grateful for his support of my ideas and his trust in my ability. I want to thank Dr. Thomas Austin, for his great lectures on advanced programming languages and advices on the topic, which provided great helps on my thesis. I want to thank Dr. Thomas Howell for his strong support and great advices regarding to my study and research. Last but not the least, I want to say great thanks to my dear wife. My wife supported me to pursue my dream and gave me strengths for conquer any difficulty. v