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Programming language semantics and closed applicative languages

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John BackusAuthors Info & Claims

POPL '73: Proceedings of the 1st annual ACM SIGACT-SIGPLAN symposium on Principles of programming languages

Pages 71 - 86

https://doi.org/10.1145/512927.512934

Published: 01 October 1973 Publication History

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Abstract

This paper proposes axioms to define a sequence of language-classes; the most general is that of "programming language", the most restricted has some simple and attractive properties. Here "language" is used in its traditional sense as referring to a set of interpreted expressions. We are concerned with the syntax of an expression only to the degree needed to relate its structure to its "meaning". A clear distinction is drawn between a "language" and the many possible "realizations" of that language.This introduction comprises a survey and opinionated discussion of the contents of the paper, therefore the reader who wishes to get on with the technical exposition can skip to the next section.

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Backus, J. Reduction languages and variable-free programming. IBM Research Report RJ1010, Yorktown Heights, NY, April 7, 1972

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Priestley M(2017)AI and the Origins of the Functional Programming Language StyleMinds and Machines10.1007/s11023-017-9432-727:3(449-472)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2017
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Backus J(2007)Can programming be liberated from the von Neumann style?ACM Turing award lectures10.1145/1283920.1283933Online publication date: 1-Jan-2007
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1283920.1283933
Friedman DWise D(2006)Unbounded computational structuresSoftware: Practice and Experience10.1002/spe.43800804048:4(407-416)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2006
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Programming language semantics and closed applicative languages
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. General programming languages

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Published In

POPL '73: Proceedings of the 1st annual ACM SIGACT-SIGPLAN symposium on Principles of programming languages

October 1973

242 pages

ISBN:9781450373494

DOI:10.1145/512927

Conference Chair:
Patrick C. Fischer
University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
,
Program Chair:
Jeffrey D. Ullman
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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Published: 01 October 1973

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POPL '73 Paper Acceptance Rate 22 of 100 submissions, 22%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 824 of 4,130 submissions, 20%

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Priestley M(2017)AI and the Origins of the Functional Programming Language StyleMinds and Machines10.1007/s11023-017-9432-727:3(449-472)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s11023-017-9432-7
Backus J(2007)Can programming be liberated from the von Neumann style?ACM Turing award lectures10.1145/1283920.1283933Online publication date: 1-Jan-2007
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1283920.1283933
Friedman DWise D(2006)Unbounded computational structuresSoftware: Practice and Experience10.1002/spe.43800804048:4(407-416)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2006
https://doi.org/10.1002/spe.4380080404
Stanat DMagó G(2006)Minimizing maximum flows in linear graphsNetworks10.1002/net.32300904059:4(333-361)Online publication date: 11-Oct-2006
https://doi.org/10.1002/net.3230090405
Kluge WSchmittgen C(2005)Reduction languages and reduction systemsFuture Parallel Computers10.1007/3-540-18203-9_4(153-184)Online publication date: 28-May-2005
https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-18203-9_4
Backus J(2005)The algebra of functional programs: Function level reasoning, linear equations, and extended definitionsFormalization of Programming Concepts10.1007/3-540-10699-5_91(1-43)Online publication date: 24-May-2005
https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-10699-5_91
Koster A(2005)An algorithm for translating LISP programs into reduction language programsInternational Symposium on Programming10.1007/3-540-09981-6_14(193-206)Online publication date: 26-May-2005
https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-09981-6_14
Alur RHenzinger TKupferman O(2002)Alternating-time temporal logicJournal of the ACM10.1145/585265.58527049:5(672-713)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2002
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/585265.585270
Wang HMylopoulos JLiao S(2002)Intelligent agents and financial risk monitoring systemsCommunications of the ACM10.1145/504729.50473345:3(83-88)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2002
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Hochbaum D(2001)An efficient algorithm for image segmentation, Markov random fields and related problemsJournal of the ACM10.1145/502090.50209348:4(686-701)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2001
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