Ill-Typed Programs Don't Evaluate
Abstract
We introduce two-sided type systems, which are sequent calculi for typing formulas. Two-sided type systems allow for hypothetical reasoning over the typing of compound program expressions, and the refutation of typing formulas. By incorporating a type of all values, these type systems support more refined notions of well-typing and ill-typing, guaranteeing both that well-typed programs don't go wrong and that ill-typed programs don't evaluate - that is, reach a value. This makes two-sided type systems suitable for incorrectness reasoning in higher-order program verification, which we illustrate through an application to precise data-flow typing in a language with constructors and pattern matching. Finally, we investigate the internalisation of the meta-level negation in the system as a complement operator on types. This motivates an alternative semantics for the typing judgement, which guarantees that ill-typed programs don't evaluate, but in which well-typed programs may yet go wrong.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2307.06928,
title = {Ill-Typed Programs Don't Evaluate},
author = {Steven Ramsay and Charlie Walpole},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2307.06928},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
Incorporating anonymous reviewer suggestions from POPL'24