Lambda the Ultimate

inactiveTopic VMlambda: A Functional Calculus for Scientific Discovery
started 8/14/2001; 2:29:44 PM - last post 8/14/2001; 2:29:44 PM
Ehud Lamm - VMlambda: A Functional Calculus for Scientific Discovery  blueArrow
8/14/2001; 2:29:44 PM (reads: 1766, responses: 0)
VMlambda: A Functional Calculus for Scientific Discovery
VML is a programming language proposed by discovery scientists for the purpose of assisting the process of knowledge discovery. It is a non-trivial extension of ML with _hypothetical views_. Operationally, a hypothetical view is a value with a representation that indicates how the value was created. The notion of hypothetical views has already been successful in the domain of genome analysis, and known to be useful in the process of knowledge discovery. However, VML as a programming language was only informally defined in English prose, and indeed found problematic both in theory and in practice. Thus, a proper definition and implementation of VML with formal foundations would be of great help to discovery science and hence corresponding domain sciences.

...We also present a real implementation of VMlambda, written in Camlp4 as a conservative translator into OCaml. This implementation makes extensive use of labeled arguments and polymorphic variants -- two advanced features of OCaml that originate in OLabl.


Posted to theory by Ehud Lamm on 8/14/01; 2:34:24 PM