Lambda the Ultimate

Features of a programming language, whether syntactic or semantic, are all part of the language's user interface. And a user interface can handle only so much complexity or it becomes unusable. This is also the reason why Python will never have continuations, and even why I'm uninterested in optimizing tail recursion.

Thus spoke Guido - as LtU readers already know.

Now, not even four weeks later, it has become clear that turning tail recursions into iterations can be achieved by an innocent little decorator in pure Python. No Rube Goldberg machine(s) in sight.

This seems to be an introductory ("aimed specifically at non-theoreticians") set of articles on OO type theory. The author is Tony Simons and the articles were all published in the Journal of Object Technology.

1. Perspectives on Type Compatibility (pdf)
2. The Scratch-Built Typechecker (pdf)
3. Object Encodings and Recursion (pdf)
4. Object Types and Subtyping (pdf)
5. Axioms, Assertions and Subtyping (pdf)
6. The Subtyping Inquisition (pdf)
7. A Class is a Family of Types (pdf)
8. Classification and Inheritance (pdf)
9. Inheritance and Self-Reference (pdf)
10. Method Combination and Super-Reference (pdf)
11. Adding Class Types to Object Implementations (pdf)
12. Building the Class Hierarchy (pdf)
13. Template Classes and Genericity (pdf)
14. Modification and Objects like Myself (pdf)
15. Mixins and the Superclass Interface (pdf)
16. Rules of Extension and the Typing of Inheritance (pdf)
17. Multiple Inheritance and the Resolution of Inheritance Conflicts (pdf)
18. Polymorphism Through the Looking Glass (pdf)
19. The Proliferation of Parameters (pdf)
20. The Modular Checking of Classtypes (pdf)

If I've made a mistake above, try A Simons's bibliography or here.