On the Design and Specification of a Common Base Language

Abstract

The design and specification of a common base language for procedures and information structures is discussed. The report envisions the meanings of programs expressed in practical source languages as defined by rules of translation into the base language. The meanings of programs in the base language are specified by a transition system that is an interpreter for the base language. The base language interpreter serves as the functional specification of a computer system with emphasis on programming generality -- the ability of users to build complex programs by combining independently written program modules. A rudimentary version of the base language is presented, and the problem of translating block-structured programs into base language programs is discussed.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 01, 1972
Accession Number
AD0744207

Entities

People

  • Jack B. Dennis

Organizations

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Classification
  • Computer Architecture
  • Computer Programming
  • Computers
  • Computing System Architectures
  • Concrete
  • Environment
  • Guarantees
  • Instructions
  • Language
  • Massachusetts
  • Military Research
  • Numbers
  • Programming Languages
  • Security
  • Translations

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Database Systems and Applications
  • Systems Analysis and Design