[cofi-higher-order: starting discussions]

[karlm@nada.kth.se]

Dear CoFI higher-order subscribers,

[Note from the CoFI mailing lists administrator: 
The CoFI Higher-Order mailing list has previously been dormant.  Since
higher-order issues are generally relevant to the overall design of
the CASL language and its extensions, messages sent on
cofi-higher-order are also automatically submitted to cofi-language
(but not vice versa).  Thus if you are subscribing to both these
lists, you will currently receive 2 copies of each message; but you
may avoid this by subscribing to only one of them, according to
whether you are interested in language design issues in general, or
only in higher-order ones. --PDM]

The time has come to start up this discussion group! In fact we are 
somewhat slow, mainly due to my having changed both institution *and*
country last summer. (I also had some technical gremlins with majordomo
but they seem to be fixed.) 

First, let me begin by reminding those of you who have not yet used 
our discussion software (majordomo) that full instructions on its use
can be found at:

http://www.brics.dk/Projects/CoFI/ - under "Coordination: Mailing Lists".

Any unanswered questions will be fielded by myself, or the Aarhus
people whose server is running the software.  [Please let
pdmosses@brics.dk know about points where the Majordomo guidelines
need clarifying. --PDM]

Next let me point to another information resource that would be nice
to build up, which I will call a "higher-order specification homepage"
for want of a better name:

http://www.nada.kth.se/~karlm/hoapage.html

Having worked on higher-order specifications myself for a long time, I
know that many useful references are obscure. I have placed my own
personal collection on this homepage, and I invite you to contribute
your own references, together with any other web links which you think
are relevant (for example conferences of interest).


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HOW SHALL WE ORGANISE OUR DISCUSSIONS?
- --------------------------------------

Recall that the context of this discussion group is the Common
Framework Initiative. In particular, the time has come to think about
higher-order extensions of the core language. Thus one concrete goal
might be to head towards concsnsus on such an extension by means of a
thorough discussion, in the light of the many technical results and
experience which we collectively have. Perhaps this goal is already
too ambitious!  We shall see in 6 months time - perhaps.

[An even more urgent matter is to check whether there are any
constructs in the Tentative CASL which would make extension with
higher-order constructs difficult. --PDM]

At this point for example, I could play devil's advocate and argue
against higher-order methods entirely, forcing people to initiate
discussions by calling for concrete technical arguments in favour!
Perhaps from some (short!) initial position statements arguing in
favour (to which I can contribute my own theoretical reasons) we can
distill a list of specific discussion topics.

It might then be appropriate if subscribers head their future
submissions with a specific discussion topic, so that we are not
collectively lost among obscure and fragmented discussions. In other
words - we need some points in order to stick to them!

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AND FINALLY
- -----------
I promise as moderator to do my utmost to keep you all up to date
regularly (assuming you don't make my task intractable by swamping me
in e-mail).  Thus remember that I have to read all this stuff, so
please keep contributions short and to the point - then we will
probably all read them.

I am under strict instructions to remain impartial (this may not be so
easy after 8 years of research on this topic). All complaints about
this can be directed to the overall CoFI coordinator, Peter Mosses!

WELCOME!!!
Karl Meinke