Elements of Programming

Chapter 1

Foundations

Starting with a brief taxonomy of ideas, we introduce notions of value, object, type, procedure, and concept that represent different categories of ideas in the computer. A central notion of the book, regularity, is introduced and elaborated. When applied to procedures, regularity means that procedures return equal results for equal arguments. When applied to types, regularity means that types possess the equality operator and equality-preserving copy construction and assignment. Regularity enables us to apply equational reasoning (substituting equals for equals) to transform and optimize programs.

1.1 Categories of Ideas: Entity, Species, Genus

In order to explain what objects, types, and other foundational computer notions ...