--- a/Paper/Paper.thy Tue Mar 30 22:31:15 2010 +0200
+++ b/Paper/Paper.thy Wed Mar 31 02:59:18 2010 +0200
@@ -1530,9 +1530,35 @@
section {* Related Work *}
text {*
- Ott is better with list dot specifications; subgrammars
+ The earliest usage we know of general binders in a theorem prover setting is
+ in the paper \cite{NaraschewskiNipkow99}, which describes a formalisation of
+ the algorithm W. This formalisation implements binding in type schemes using a
+ a de-Bruijn indices representation. Also recently an extension for general binders
+ has been proposed for the locally nameless approach to binding \cite{chargueraud09}. .
+ But we have not yet seen it to be employed in a non-trivial formal verification.
+ In both approaches, it seems difficult to achieve our fine-grained control over the
+ ``semantics'' of bindings (whether the order should matter, or vacous binders
+ should be taken into account). To do so, it is necessary to introduce predicates
+ that filter out some unwanted terms. This very likely results in intricate
+ formal reasoning.
+
+ Higher-Order Abstract Syntax (HOAS) approaches to representing binders are
+ nicely supported in the Twelf theorem prover and work is in progress to use
+ HOAS in a mechanisation of the metatheory of SML
+ \cite{LeeCraryHarper07}. HOAS supports elegantly reasoning about
+ term-calculi with single binders. We are not aware how more complicated
+ binders from SML are represented in HOAS, but we know that HOAS cannot
+ easily deal with binding constructs where the number of bound variables is
+ not fixed. An example is the second part of the POPLmark challenge where
+ @{text "Let"}s involving patterns need to be formalised. In such situations
+ HOAS needs to use essentially has to represent multiple binders with
+ iterated single binders.
- untyped;
+ An attempt of representing general binders in the old version of Isabelle
+ based also on iterating single binders is described in \cite{BengtsonParow09}.
+ The reasoning there turned out to be quite complex.
+
+ Ott is better with list dot specifications; subgrammars, is untyped;
*}
@@ -1543,6 +1569,10 @@
Complication when the single scopedness restriction is lifted (two
overlapping permutations)
+ Future work: distinct list abstraction
+
+ TODO: function definitions:
+
The formalisation presented here will eventually become part of the
Isabelle distribution, but for the moment it can be downloaded from
@@ -1552,10 +1582,6 @@
*}
text {*
-
- TODO: function definitions:
- \medskip
-
\noindent
{\bf Acknowledgements:} We are very grateful to Andrew Pitts for
many discussions about Nominal Isabelle. We thank Peter Sewell for
@@ -1565,9 +1591,7 @@
also thank Stephanie Weirich for suggesting to separate the subgrammars
of kinds and types in our Core-Haskell example.
- Lookup: Merlin paper by James Cheney; Mark Shinwell PhD
-
- Future work: distinct list abstraction
+
*}