First-class Function - Type Theory

Type Theory

In type theory, the type of functions accepting values of type A and returning values of type B may be written as AB or BA. In the Curry-Howard correspondence, function types are related to logical implication; lambda abstraction corresponds to discharging hypothetical assumptions and function application corresponds to the modus ponens inference rule. Besides the usual case of programming functions, type theory also uses first-class functions to model associative arrays and similar data structures.

In category-theoretical accounts of programming, the availability of first-class functions corresponds to the closed category assumption. For instance, the simply typed lambda calculus corresponds to the internal language of cartesian closed categories.

Read more about this topic:  First-class Function

Famous quotes containing the words type and/or theory:

    How is freedom measured, in individuals as in nations? By the resistance which has to be overcome, by the effort it costs to stay aloft. One would have to seek the highest type of free man where the greatest resistance is constantly being overcome: five steps from tyranny, near the threshold of the danger of servitude.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    A theory if you hold it hard enough
    And long enough gets rated as a creed....
    Robert Frost (1874–1963)