Using Links to prototype a Database Wiki

Both relational databases and wikis have strengths that make them attractive for use in collaborative applications. In the last decade, database-backed Web applications have been used extensively to develop valuable shared biological references called curated databases. Databases offer many advantages such as scalability, query optimization and concurrency control, but are not easy to use and lack other features needed for collaboration. Wikis have become very popular for early-stage biocuration projects because they are easy to use, encourage sharing and collaboration, and provide built-in support for archiving, history-tracking and annotation. However, curation projects often outgrow the limited capabilities of wikis for structuring and efficiently querying data at scale, necessitating a painful phase transition to a database-backed Web application. We perceive a need for a new class of general-purpose system, which we call a Database Wiki, that combines flexible wiki-like support for collaboration with robust database-like capabilities for structuring and querying data. This paper presents DBWiki, a design prototype for such a system written in the Web programming language Links. We present the architecture, typical use, and wiki markup language design for DBWiki and discuss features of Links that provided unique advantages for rapid Web/database application prototyping

Coherence Generalises Duality: A Logical Explanation of Multiparty Session Types

Wadler introduced Classical Processes (CP), a calculus based on a propositions-as-types correspondence between propositions of classical linear logic and session types. Carbone et al. introduced Multiparty Classical Processes, a calculus that generalises CP to multiparty session types, by replacing the duality of classical linear logic (relating two types) with a more general notion of coherence (relating an arbitrary number of types). This paper introduces variants of CP and MCP, plus a new intermediate calculus of Globally-governed Classical Processes (GCP). We show a tight relation between these three calculi, giving semantics-preserving translations from GCP to CP and from MCP to GCP. The translation from GCP to CP interprets a coherence proof as an arbiter process that mediates communications in a session, while MCP adds annotations that permit processes to communicate directly without centralised control

Continuation Passing Style for Effect Handlers

We present Continuation Passing Style (CPS) translations for Plotkin and Pretnar's effect handlers with Hillerström and Lindley's row-typed fine-grain call-by-value calculus of effect handlers as the source language. CPS translations of handlers are interesting theoretically, to explain the semantics of handlers, and also offer a practical implementation technique that does not require special support in the target language's runtime. We begin with a first-order CPS translation into untyped lambda calculus which manages a stack of continuations and handlers as a curried sequence of arguments. We then refine the initial CPS translation first by uncurrying it to yield a properly tail-recursive translation and second by making it higher-order in order to contract administrative redexes at translation time. We prove that the higher-order CPS translation simulates effect handler reduction. We have implemented the higher-order CPS translation as a JavaScript backend for the Links programming language

Encoding Product Types

Can product types be encoded in simply-typed lambda calculus with base types and function types? It depends

Multiparty Classical Choreographies

We present Multiparty Classical Choreographies (MCC), a language model where global descriptions of communicating systems (choreographies) implement typed multiparty sessions. Typing is achieved by generalising classical linear logic to judgements that explicitly record parallelism by means of hypersequents. Our approach unifies different lines of work on choreographies and processes with multiparty sessions, as well as their connection to linear logic. Thus, results developed in one context are carried over to the others. Key novelties of MCC include support for server invocation in choreographies, as well as logic-driven compilation of choreographies with replicated processes.Comment: Post-proceedings paper presented at the 28th International Symposium on Logic-Based Program Synthesis and Transformation (LOPSTR 2018), Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 4-6 September 2018 (arXiv:1808.03326) The paper was improved and extended (+2 pages). Now more details are provided on the wor