• DOI:10.1145/363744.363749
• Corpus ID: 6505810

Correspondence between ALGOL 60 and Church's Lambda-notation

@article{Landin1965CorrespondenceBA,
  title={Correspondence between ALGOL 60 and Church's Lambda-notation},
  author={Peter J. Landin},
  journal={Communications of the ACM},
  year={1965},
  volume={8},
  pages={89 - 101}
}

• P. J. Landin
• Published 1 February 1965
• Computer Science
• Communications of the ACM

This paper describes how some of the semantics of ALGOL 60 can be formalized by establishing a correspondence between expressions of ALGOL 60 and expressions in a modified form of Church's n-notation. First a model for computer languages and computer behavior is described, based on the notions of functional application and functional abstraction, but also having analogues for imperative language features. Then |his model is used as an "abstract object language" into which ALGOL 60 is mapped. Many of ALGOL 60's features emerge as particular arrangements of a small number of structural rules, suggesting new classifications and generalizations. The correspondence is first described informally, mainly by illustrations. The second part of the paper gives a formal description, i.e. an "abstract compiler" into the "abstract object language." lhis is itself presented in a "purely functional" notation, that is one using only application and abstraction.