Programs As Diagrams

Programs as Diagrams

It is not always clear what computer programs mean in the various languages in which they can be written, yet a picture can be worth 1000 words, a diagram 1000 instructions. In this unique textbook/reference, programs are drawn as string diagrams in the language of categories, which display a universal syntax of mathematics (Computer scientists use them to analyze the program semantics; programmers to display the syntax of computations). Here, the string-diagrammatic depictions of computations are construed as programs in a single-instruction programming language. Such programs as diagrams show how functions are packed in boxes and tied by strings. Readers familiar with categories will learn about the foundations of computability; readers familiar with computability gain access to category theory. Additionally, readers familiar with both are offered many opportunities to improve the approach. Topics and features: Delivers a ‘crash’ diagram-based course in theory of computation Uses single-instruction diagrammatic programming language Offers a practical introduction into categories and string diagrams as computational tools Reveals how computability is programmability, rather than an ‘ether’ permeating computers Provides a categorical model of intensional computation is unique up to isomorphism Serves as a stepping stone into research of computable categories In addition to its early chapters introducing computability for beginners, this flexible textbook/resource also contains both middle chapters that expand for suitability to a graduate course as well as final chapters opening up new research. Dusko Pavlovic is a professor at the Department of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and by courtesy at the Department of Mathematics and the College of Engineering. He completed this book as an Excellence Professor at Radboud University in Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

Branching Programs and Binary Decision Diagrams

Finite functions (in particular, Boolean functions) play a fundamental role in computer science and discrete mathematics. This book describes representations of Boolean functions that have small size for many important functions and which allow efficient work with the represented functions. The representation size of important and selected functions is estimated, upper and lower bound techniques are studied, efficient algorithms for operations on these representations are presented, and the limits of those techniques are considered. This book is the first comprehensive description of theory and applications. Research areas like complexity theory, efficient algorithms, data structures, and discrete mathematics will benefit from the theory described in this book. The results described within have applications in verification, computer-aided design, model checking, and discrete mathematics. This is the only book to investigate the representation size of Boolean functions and efficient algorithms on these representations.

Architectural and Program Diagrams