2007/04/01 by Paul Blain Levy · 1 citation
Computer Science · Mathematics · #Logic, programming, and type systems #Logic, Reasoning, and Knowledge #Advanced Algebra and Logic #Denotational semantics #Operational semantics #Normalisation by evaluation #Denotational semantics of the Actor model #Computer science #Regular polygon #Lemma (botany) #Algebra over a field #Semantics (computer science) #Theoretical computer science #Discrete mathematics #Programming language #Mathematics #Pure mathematics
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.entcs.2007.02.036
openalex publication_date 2007/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/02
McCarthy's amb operator has no known denotational semantics, and its basic operational properties - the context lemma, the compatibility of refinement similarity and convex bisimilarity - have long been open. In this paper, we give a single example program that demonstrates the failure of each of these properties. This shows that there cannot be any well-pointed denotational semantics. However, we show that, if amb is given at ground type only, then all of these operational properties do hold.