Purely functional lazy non-deterministic programming

Functional logic programming and probabilistic programming have demonstrated the broad benefits of combining laziness (non-strict evaluation with sharing of the results) with non-determinism. Yet these benefits are seldom enjoyed in functional programming, because the existing features for non-strictness, sharing, and nondeterminism in functional languages are tricky to combine. We present a practical way to write purely functional lazy non-deterministic programs that are efficient and perspicuous. We achieve this goal by embedding the programs into existing languages (such as Haskell, SML, and OCaml) with high-quality implementations, by making choices lazily and representing data with non-deterministic components, by working with custom monadic data types and search strategies, and by providing equational laws for the programmer to reason about their code.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: ICFP
• Authors: Sebastian Fischer, Oleg Kiselyov, Chung-chieh Shan
• Keywords: Functional Logic Programming, Functional Programming, ICFP 2009, Lazy Non-deterministic Programs, Programming Languages