Recommended Citation
Postprint version. Published in 39th Annual ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages Proceedings: Philadelphia, PA, January 25, 2012.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1145/2103656.2103691.
Abstract
Formal models serve in many roles in the programming language community. In its primary role, a model communicates the idea of a language design; the architecture of a language tool; or the essence of a program analysis. No matter which role it plays, however, a faulty model doesn't serve its purpose.
One way to eliminate flaws from a model is to write it down in a mechanized formal language. It is then possible to state theorems about the model, to prove them, and to check the proofs. Over the past nine years, PLT has developed and explored a lightweight version of this approach, dubbed Redex. In a nutshell, Redex is a domain-specific language for semantic models that is embedded in the Racket programming language. The effort of creating a model in Redex is often no more burdensome than typesetting it with LaTeX; the difference is that Redex comes with tools for the semantics engineering life cycle.
Disciplines
Computer Sciences
Copyright
2012 ACM.
Publisher statement
This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in 39th Annual ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages Proceedings: Philadelphia, PA, {January 25, 2012}.
URL: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/csse_fac/228