Lazy Functional Languages

The class of programming languages commonly known as functional includes
Lisp, Scheme, ML, and Miranda TM. This book explores a subclass known as lazy
functional languages, beginning with the theoretical issues and continuing through
abstract interpretation and offering improved techniques for implementation.Now that
advanced compiler technology has made it possible for lazy functional languages to
compare favorably in run-time with more traditional languages such as C and Pascal,
this monograph tackles problems of implementation such as time and memory overheads
and restrictions on parallelism. Specifically, it describes a more efficient
implementation model, the evaluation transformer model, that can be used when
information is known about how functions use their arguments, develops a
semantically sound analysis technique called abstract interpretation, which can
determine this information, and shows how to use the information to compile more
efficient code for sequential and parallel machines.Geoffrey Burn is Lecturer at
Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine, London.Contents:

Introduction. Operational and Denotational Semantics of the Typed Lambda Calculus. A
Framework for the Abstract Interpretation of Functional Languages. Some Example
Abstract Interpretations. Evaluation Transformers. Implementing Functional Languages
on Sequential and Parallel Machines. Relationship to Other Work. Epilogue.
Appendixes: Additional Proofs. The Spineless G-Machine.