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In "Call-by-push-value: A subsuming paradigm." (Levy, Paul Blain. Springer, Dordrecht, 2003. 27-47) terms of the lambda calculus get split in to values and computations, with the slogan "A value is, a computation does".

What I don't understand is: why are abstractions computations and not values? Intuitively a function does not do anything and can be used as data. It will only do something when applied to something.

Labbekak
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1 Answers1

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thanks for your interest in call-by-push-value. The fact that functions (all functions, not just lambda-abstractions) are computations is the main difference between call-by-push-value and call-by-value (where functions are values), and it does seem strange at first. But the mystery is (somewhat) resolved when you see the CK-machine, which is a kind of operational semantics that uses a computation and a stack. In terms of that machine, a function of type A -> B is a computation that aims to pop a value of type A and then behave as a computation of type B. For example:

    print "hello".
    lambda x.
    print "hello again".
    return x

is a computation that first prints "hello", then pops x ("lambda" means "pop"), then prints "hello again", then returns x. And actually, the same phenomenon of "lambda" as "pop" is present in call-by-name; that's why call-by-push-value manages to subsume call-by-name.

I hope that helps! I should also say that the origin of call-by-push-value is that it was empirically observed within the models. The slogan was designed to fit the language and not the other way round. But that's just saying probably a less helpful answer, because it's just saying "the language is that way because the models say so".

Paul Blain Levy
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  • What is the advantage of CBPV over FG-CBV? It seems to me that FG-CBV does everything that CBPV does (explicit evaluation order, thunks can be done with abstractions). – Labbekak Aug 17 '18 at 12:42