Last time I introduce lambda calculus.Lambda calculus is powerful enough for computation. But it’s not good enough for people, compare with below Church Numerals
people prefer just +
more.
But once we introduce such fundamental operations into the system, validation would be a thing. This is the main reason to have a λ→ system(a.k.a. simply typed lambda calculus). It gets name λ→ is because it introduces one new type: Arrow type, represent as T1→T2 for any abstraction λx.M where x has a type is T1 and M has a type is T2. Therefore we can limit the input to a specified type, without considering how to add two Car
together!
To represent this, syntax needs a little change:
term ::= terms
x variable
λx: T.term abstraction
term term application
Abstraction now can describe it’s parameter type. Then we have typing rules:
Here is the explanation:
- T-Variable: with the premise, term x binds to type T in context Γ is truth. We can make a conclusion, in context Γ, we can judge the type of x is T.
- T-Abstraction: with the premise, with context Γ and term x binds to type T1 we can judge term t2 has type T2. We can make a conclusion, in context Γ, we can judge the type of λx:T1.t2 is T1→T2.
- T-Application: with the premise, with context Γ and term t1 binds to type T1→T2 and with context Γ we can judge term t2 has type T1. We can make a conclusion, in context Γ, we can judge the type of t1t2 is T2.
Discussion (1)
Unfortunately, this kind of article with so many latex symbols, post it to dev.to is so hard. 😭