I am looking for advice or ideas on the formulation of an operational semantics
for studying the behaviour of Haskell programs.
What I have in mind is a structured semantics for the unoptimized evaluation of
Core Haskell programs (my main interest is in studying space behaviour). By
unoptimised I mean modelling lazy evaluation 'as it ought to be done', with no
changes or implementation assumptions that could modify the time or space
behaviour of a program.
I would be grateful if anyone could point me to work in this area, or if anyone
has comments or suggestions for improving existing formulations of lazy
evaluation. I am aware of a paper by John Launchbury (20th ACM POPL,1993) that
presents a lazy semantics, and would like to know if anyone who has studied it
(or any similar works) have found there to be difficulties or benefits to using
that presentation.
I would also be very interested to hear about any optimisations to lazy
evaluation that you think should come as standard, or, indeed, any widely
regarded as 'safe' or 'useful' that may actually be dangerous.
Thanks.
Adam Bakewell.
