language design effects delimited continuations control flow

Eff is a programming language based on the algebraic approach to computational effects, in which effects are viewed as algebraic operations and effect handlers as homomorphisms from free algebras. Eff supports first-class effects and handlers through which we may easily define new computational effects, seamlessly combine existing ones, and handle them in novel ways. We give a denotational semantics of eff and discuss a prototype implementation based on it. Through examples we demonstrate how the standard effects are treated in eff, and how eff supports programming techniques that use various forms of delimited continuations, such as backtracking, breadth-first search, selection functionals, cooperative multi-threading, and others.

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language design control flow yield coroutines continuations delimited continuations

Many mainstream languages have operators named yield that share common semantic roots but differ significantly in their details. We present the first known formal study of these mainstream yield operators, unify their many semantic differences, adapt them to to a functional setting, and distill the operational semantics and type theory for a generalized yield operator. The resultant yield, with its delimiter run, turns out to be a delimited control operator of comparable expressive power to shift-reset, with translations from one to the other. The mainstream variants of yield turn out to be one-shot or linearly used restrictions of delimited continuations. These connections may serve as a means of transporting ideas from the rich theory on delimited continuations to mainstream languages which have largely shied away from them. Dually, the restrictions of the various existing yield operations may be treated as shift-reset variants that have found mainstream acceptance and thus worthy of study.

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interface scheme continuation

A goal of programming is to divide a complex task into simpler parts. In a well organized program each of these simpler tasks is represented by a procedure. Each procedure should perform a distinct action. Its user should not have to be conscious about the details of its implementation and should not have to undo or repeat work performed by it. This excess interaction between procedures is called leakage. When leakage is eliminated, the clarity and correctness of programs is enhanced. Our goal in this paper is to show how some leakage can be removed by using a generalization of continuation-passing style. We emphasize the development of a clear programming style rather than efficiency.

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