Referential transparency, definiteness and unfoldability Export

@article{citeulike:5080708, abstract = {The term ” referential transparency” is frequently used to indicate that a programming language has certain useful substitution properties. We observe, however, that the formal and informal definitions given in the literature are not equivalent and we investigate their relationships. To this end, we study the definitions in the context of a simple expression language and show that in the presence of non-determinism, the differences between the definitions are manifest. We propose a definition of ” referential transparency”, based on Quine's, as well as of the related notions: definiteness and unfoldability. We demonstrate that these notions are useful to characterize programming languages.}, author = {S{\o}ndergaard, Harald and Sestoft, Peter}, citeulike-article-id = {5080708}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00277387}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://www.springerlink.com/content/x83n623522w8g565}, day = {1}, doi = {10.1007/BF00277387}, issn = {0001-5903}, journal = {Acta Informatica}, month = {May}, number = {6}, pages = {505--517}, posted-at = {2009-07-07 00:57:56}, priority = {0}, title = {Referential transparency, definiteness and unfoldability}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00277387}, volume = {27}, year = {1990} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:5080708 L3 - citeulike-article-id:5080708 N2 - The term “referential transparency” is frequently used to indicate that a programming language has certain useful substitution properties. We observe, however, that the formal and informal definitions given in the literature are not equivalent and we investigate their relationships. To this end, we study the definitions in the context of a simple expression language and show that in the presence of non-determinism, the differences between the definitions are manifest. We propose a definition of “referential transparency”, based on Quine's, as well as of the related notions: definiteness and unfoldability. We demonstrate that these notions are useful to characterize programming languages. IS - 6 JF - Acta Informatica SN - 0001-5903 EP - 517 TI - Referential transparency, definiteness and unfoldability VL - 27 SP - 505 AU - Søndergaard, Harald AU - Sestoft, Peter PY - 1990/05/01/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00277387 ER -