English

The meaning of a program change is a change to the program's meaning

Programming Languages 2019-08-05 v1

Abstract

Programming is the activity of modifying a program in order to bring about specific changes in its behaviour. Yet programming language theory almost exclusively focuses on the meaning of programs. We motivate a "change-oriented" viewpoint from which the meaning of a program change is a change to the program's meaning.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1908.00898,
  title  = {The meaning of a program change is a change to the program's meaning},
  author = {Roly Perera},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1908.00898},
  year   = {2019}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T10:38:20.363Z