Iowa Type Theory Commute

In this episode, I describe the first proof of normalization for STLC, written by Alan Turing in the 1940s. See this short note for Turing's original proof and some historical comments.

In this episode, after a quick review of the preceding couple, I discuss the property of normalization for STLC, and talk a bit about proof methods. We will look at proofs in more detail in the coming episodes. Feel free to join the Telegram group for the podcast if you want to discuss anything (or just email me at [email protected]).

Like addition and multiplication on Church-encoded numbers, exponentiation can be assigned a type in simply typed lambda calculus (STLC). But surprisingly, the type is non-uniform. If we abbreviate (A -> A) -> A -> A as Nat_A, then exponentiation, which is defined as \ x . \ y . y x, can be assigned type Nat_A -> Nat_(A -> A) -> Nat_A. The second argument needs to

It is maybe not so well known that arithmetic operations -- at least some of them -- can be implemented in simply typed lambda calculus (STLC). Church-encoded numbers can be given the simple type (A -> A) -> A -> A, for any simple type A. If we abbreviate that type as Nat_A, then addition and multiplication can both be typed in STLC, at type Nat_A -> Nat_A -> Nat_A.

I review the typing rules and some basic examples for STLC. I also remind listeners of the Curry-Howard isomorphism for STLC.

In this episode, after a pretty long hiatus, I start a new chapter on simply typed lambda calculus. I present the typing rules and give some basic examples. Subsequent episodes will discuss various interesting nuances...

This episode presents two somewhat more advanced examples in DCS. They are Harper's continuation-based regular-expression matcher, and Bird's quickmin, which finds the least natural number not in a given list of distinct natural numbers, in linear time. I explain these examples in detail and then discuss how they are implemented in DCS, which ensures that they are terminating on al

In this episode, I continue introducing DCS by comparing it to termination checkers in constructive type theories like Coq, Agda, and Lean. I warmly invite ITTC listeners to experiment with the tool themselves. The repo is here.

In this episode, I talk more about the DCS tool, and invite listeners to check it out and possibly contribute! The repo is here.

DCS is a new functional programming language I am designing and implementing with Stefan Monnier. DCS has a pure, terminating core, around which monads will be layered for possibly diverging, impure computation. In this episode, I talk about this basic design, and its rationale.