The denotational semantics of programming languages

Abstract

This paper is a tutorial introduction to the theory of programming language semantics developed by D. Scott and C. Strachey. The application of the theory to formal language specification is demonstrated and other applications are surveyed. The first language considered, LOOP, is very elementary and its definition merely introduces the notation and methodology of the approach. Then the semantic concepts of environments, stores, and continuations are introduced to model classes of programming language features and the underlying mathematical theory of computation due to Scott is motivated and outlined. Finally, the paper presents a formal definition of the language GEDANKEN.

A Dialogue Game Protocol for Multi-Agent Argument over Proposals for Action

“…These tables also present the pre-conditions necessary for the legal utterance of each locution under the Protocol, and any post-conditions arising from their legal utterance. Thus, Tables 2-6 present an outline of an axiomatic semantics for the PARMA Protocol [19], and imply the rules governing the combination of locutions under the protocol [13]. We further assume, following [7] and in accordance with recent work in agent communications, that a Commitment Store is associated with each participant, which stores, in a manner which all participants may read, the commitments made by that participant in the course of a dialogue.…”

“…We now outline a denotational semantics for the PARMA protocol, that is a semantics which maps statements in the syntax to mathematical entities [19]. Our approach draws on the semantics proposed by Charles Hamblin for imperative statements [8], which itself may be viewed as a process theory of causality.…”

VDM Semantics of Programming Languages: Combinators and Monads

“…Simple variable declarations compute environments in which variable identifiers are bound to locations; inspecting the value of a simple variable involves looking up the location to which the identifier is bound in the environment, then looking up the current value of that location in the store. [Ten77]) were encouraging. The distinctive Scott-Strachey style is particularly concise, and it was adopted in many textbooks and articles on semantics, e.g.…”

“…The distinctive Scott-Strachey style is particularly concise, and it was adopted in many textbooks and articles on semantics, e.g. [Mos90,Sch86,Sto77,Ten76]. The conciseness facilitates (pencil and paper) proofs about semantic properties and is strongly favoured by many theoreticians -but unfortunately, it does not seem to appeal much to practitioners such as compiler writers and programmers.…”

“…An alternative to the use of braces is to introduce an infix operation corresponding to application, but grouping to the right. Bob Tennent [Ten76] and Mike Gordon [Gor79] used semicolons for this purpose, writing e.g. :…”