English

Categorical semantics of a simple differential programming language

Category Theory 2021-01-27 v1 Programming Languages

Abstract

With the increased interest in machine learning, and deep learning in particular, the use of automatic differentiation has become more wide-spread in computation. There have been two recent developments to provide the theoretical support for this types of structure. One approach, due to Abadi and Plotkin, provides a simple differential programming language. Another approach is the notion of a reverse differential category. In the present paper we bring these two approaches together. In particular, we show how an extension of reverse derivative categories models Abadi and Plotkin's language, and describe how this categorical model allows one to consider potential improvements to the operational semantics of the language.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2101.10491,
  title  = {Categorical semantics of a simple differential programming language},
  author = {Geoffrey Cruttwell and Jonathan Gallagher and Dorette Pronk},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2101.10491},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

In Proceedings ACT 2020, arXiv:2101.07888

R2 v1 2026-06-23T22:31:33.447Z