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Ralf Lämmel

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

12:00pm Amphitheatre H-1005

Ralf Lämmel, Professor (W3), University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany

The Expression Lemma

Abstract:

Algebraic data types and catamorphisms (folds) play a central role in functional programming as they allow programmers to define recursive data structures and operations on them uniformly by structural recursion. Likewise, in object-oriented (OO) programming, recursive hierarchies of object types with virtual methods play a central role for the same reason. There is a semantical correspondence between these two situations which we reveal and formalize categorically. To this end, we assume a coalgebraic model of OO programming with functional objects. The development may be helpful in deriving refactorings that turn sufficiently disciplined functional programs into OO programs of a designated shape and vice versa. (Joint work with Ondrej Rypacek)