A theory of type polymorphism in programming
The work
| Authors | Robin Milner |
|---|---|
| Editors | |
| Type | article |
| Year | 1978 |
| Citekey | milner1978theory |
Where it appeared
| Published in | Journal of Computer and System Sciences |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Elsevier |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 348--375 |
Identifiers
| DOI | 10.1016/0022-0000(78)90014-4 |
|---|---|
| OpenAlex | W2166822586 |
Access
| Landing page | https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-0000(78)90014-4 |
|---|---|
| Free full text | https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/files/15143545/1_s2.0_0022000078900144_main.pdf |
Abstract
The aim of this work is largely a practical one. A widely employed style of programming, particularly in structure-processing languages which impose no discipline of types, entails defining procedures which work well on objects of a wide variety. We present a formal type discipline for such polymorphic procedures in the context of a simple programming language, and a compile time type-checking algorithm W which enforces the discipline. A Semantic Soundness Theorem (based on a formal semantics for the language) states that well-type programs cannot “go wrong” and a Syntactic Soundness Theorem states that if W accepts a program then it is well typed. We also discuss extending these results to richer languages; a type-checking algorithm based on W is in fact already implemented and working, for the metalanguage ML in the Edinburgh LCF system.
A copy is held
pdf, 1.7 MB. Not published — it may be under copyright. The facts and links here are.
How it got here
| How it got here | agent via openalex |
|---|---|
| Added | 2026-08-04 00:00 UTC |
| Approved by | a person 2026-08-23 14:12 UTC |
Filed under
Cite it as
@article{milner1978theory,
title = {A theory of type polymorphism in programming},
author = {Robin Milner},
year = {1978},
journal = {Journal of Computer and System Sciences},
publisher = {Elsevier},
volume = {17},
number = {3},
pages = {348--375},
doi = {10.1016/0022-0000(78)90014-4},
}
This record lives at https://refs.drheap.org/milner1978theory/ and will keep doing so.