Dynamic rebinding for marshalling and update, with destruct-time?

Most programming languages adopt static binding, but for distributed programming an exclusive reliance on static binding is too restrictive: dynamic binding is required in various guises, for example when a marshalled value is received from the network, containing identifiers that must be rebound to local resources. Typically it is provided only by ad-hoc mechanisms that lack clean semantics. In this paper we adopt a foundational approach, developing core dynamic rebinding mechanisms as extensions to simply-typed callby-value -calculus. To do so we must first explore refinements of the call-by-value reduction strategy that delay instantiation, to ensure computations make use of the most recent versions of rebound definitions. We introduce redex-time and destruct-time strategies. The latter forms the basis for a marsh calculus that supports dynamic rebinding of marshalled values, while remaining as far as possible statically-typed. We sketch an extension of marsh with concurrency and c...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: ICFP
• Authors: Gavin M. Bierman, Michael W. Hicks, Peter Sewell, Gareth Stoyle, Keith Wansbrough
• Keywords: Dynamic Binding, Dynamic Rebinding Mechanisms, ICFP 2003, Programming Languages, Real-world Dynamic Rebinding