OH002 Total Functional Programming

Episode Notes

In this episode we are joined by Jack Pettersson. We discuss computational models and how they relate to blockchains. Do we want Turing-completeness, or is a weaker model more suitable? Would a dumber (not a Turing complete) language would make smart contracts smarter (easily verifiable)? We talk about total functional languages and alternatives to accounts-based model. Should we look at the blockchain as a pure data store, possibly equipped with primitives such as map/reduce or similar? Links:

• Meredith Pattersson talks about The Weird Machine https://archive.org/details/The_Science_of_Insecurity_
• Tau Chain http://tauchain.org/
• Idris: a general purpose pure functional programming language with dependent types http://www.idris-lang.org/
• Safer smart contracts through type-driven development byt ROBERT EDSTRÖM, JACK PETTERSSON [http://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/234939/234939.pdf]](http://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/234939/234939.pdf)
• Jack Pettersson and Robert Edström (Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden) present on a dependantly typed functional language for smart contracts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2uwUdzVD9I