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1991-11-20
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Introduction to Gofer 1. INTRODUCTION
1. INTRODUCTION
Gofer is a functional programming environment (in other words, an
interpreter) that I have implemented for my own personal use as part of
my research into `qualified types'. Nevertheless, the system is
sufficiently complete for me to believe that Gofer may be of interest
and use to others interested in the field of functional programming.
These notes give a brief introduction to the Gofer system and include
some examples of Gofer programs. They are not the notes that I
originally intended to write, being somewhat longer and perhaps more
tutorial in nature. Nevertheless, you will not be able to learn
functional programming from this document alone. A number of useful
references are given in the reading list at the end of this document.
In particular, the book by Bird and Wadler [1] is particularly good as
a general introduction to the use, techniques and theory of functional
programming. Although their notation is a little different to the
language used by Gofer, it is a relatively straightforward task to
translate between the two, and some suggestions for this are given in a
appendix D. More importantly, the underlying semantics of Gofer do
correspond to those expected by the authors of [1].
Whereas the work involved in investigating and implementing the ideas
on which Gofer is based were motivated largely by my own program of
work, the writing of these notes has rather more to do with the hope
that Gofer will be useful to others. I would therefore be very
grateful for any feedback on any aspect of the these notes (or of the
Gofer system itself). Please let me know if you discover any errors,
or if you find particular sections of these notes rather hard to
follow. Suggestions for improvements or extensions are more than
welcome.
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