A Comparison of Formalizations of the Meta-Theory of a Language with Variable Bindings in Isabelle
Alberto Momigliano · 2001
Abstract. Theorem provers can be used to reason formally about programming languages and there are various general methods for the formalization of variable binding operators. Hence there are choices for the style of formalization of such languages, even within a single theorem prover. The choice of formalization can affect how easy or difficult it is to do automated reasoning. The aim of this paper is to compare and contrast three formalizations (termed de Bruijn, weak HOAS and full HOAS) of a typical functional programming language. Our contribution is a detailed report on our formalizations, a survey of related work, and a final comparative summary, in which we mention a novel approach to a hybrid de Bruijn/HOAS syntax. 1