English

Whittemore: An embedded domain specific language for causal programming

Programming Languages 2019-01-01 v1 Artificial Intelligence Methodology

Abstract

This paper introduces Whittemore, a language for causal programming. Causal programming is based on the theory of structural causal models and consists of two primary operations: identification, which finds formulas that compute causal queries, and estimation, which applies formulas to transform probability distributions to other probability distribution. Causal programming provides abstractions to declare models, queries, and distributions with syntax similar to standard mathematical notation, and conducts rigorous causal inference, without requiring detailed knowledge of the underlying algorithms. Examples of causal inference with real data are provided, along with discussion of the implementation and possibilities for future extension.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1812.11918,
  title  = {Whittemore: An embedded domain specific language for causal programming},
  author = {Joshua Brulé},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1812.11918},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

7 pages, 6 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-23T07:00:06.464Z