Skip to content

Commit

Permalink
blog: slightly improve the documents
Browse files Browse the repository at this point in the history
  • Loading branch information
ice1000 committed Jun 3, 2024
1 parent f76faab commit 8a48fba
Show file tree
Hide file tree
Showing 3 changed files with 36 additions and 6 deletions.
7 changes: 7 additions & 0 deletions aya/blog/extended-pruning.aya.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -163,3 +163,10 @@ Info: Solving equation(s) with not very general solution(s)
```

The inline equations are the type checking problems that Aya did something bad to solve.

Conor McBride told me pattern unification is a good algorithm, but the problem of interest
might not be what we think it is. It is good for _undergraduate induction_, i.e. the
object being induct on is a variable, and the _motive_ of such induction is pattern.
This is an enlightening perspective!
But now that we have more problems, I think we might want to extend it.
Just think about how many people use `--lossy-unification` in Agda.
32 changes: 27 additions & 5 deletions aya/guide/prover-tutorial.aya.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -13,7 +13,6 @@ Here's a little prelude, which you do not need to understand now.
prim I prim coe prim Path
variable A B : Type
def infix = (a b : A) => Path (\i => A) a b
def refl {a : A} : a = a => fn i => a
open inductive Nat
| zero
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -70,8 +69,25 @@ def funExt (f g : A -> B) (p : ∀ a -> f a = g a) : f = g

This is because Aya has a "cubical" equality type that is not inductively defined.
An equality `a = b` for `a, b : A` is really just a function `I -> A`{} where `I`{}
is a special type carrying two values around (there's supposed to be a short
introduction to cubical ideas here, but I don't have time to write that out yet).
is a special type that has two closed instances `0` and `1`, but there is not a
pattern matching operation that distinguishes them. Then, for `f : I -> A`,
the corresponding equality type is `f 0 = f 1`.
By this definition, we can "prove" reflexivity by creating a constant function:

```aya
def refl {a : A} : a = a => fn i => a
```

And to show that `f = g`, it suffices to construct a function `q : I -> (A -> B)` such
that `q 0 = f` and `q 1 = g`. This is true for the proof above:

```
(fn i a => p a i) 0 β-reduce
= fn a => p a 0 p a : f a = g a
= fn a => f a η-reduce
= f
```

We may also prove the action-on-path theorem, commonly known as `cong`, but
renamed to `pmap`{} to avoid a potential future naming clash:

Expand All @@ -80,6 +96,7 @@ def pmap (f : A -> B) {a b : A} (p : a = b) : f a = f b
=> fn i => f (p i)
```

Checking the above definition is left as an exercise.
We may also invert a path using more advanced primitives:

```aya
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -238,7 +255,10 @@ open inductive Interval
```

This is an uninteresting quotient type, that is basically `Bool`{} but saying its two values are equal,
so it's really just `Unit`.
so it's really just `Unit`. The type of `line` will be translated into `I -> Interval`{}
together with the judgmental equality that `line 0`{} is `left`{} and `line 1`{} is `right`{}.
Every time we do pattern matching, we need to make sure it preserves these judgmental equalities.

What's interesting about this type, is that its elimination implies function extensionality:

```aya
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -280,4 +300,6 @@ def abs Int : Nat
| zro _ => 0
```

TODO: explain
The `succ`{} operator has the first three clauses straightforward, and the last one is a proof
of `succ (neg 0)`{} equals `succ (pos 0)`{}, as we should preserve the judgmental equality
in the type of `zro`{}. We need to do the same for `abs`{}.
3 changes: 2 additions & 1 deletion src/blog/binops.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -53,5 +53,6 @@ levels to address the issue, but I think it does not solve the essential problem
that I have to lookup the numbers (of existing operator precedences)
every time I write a new operator.

In the future, we plan to support mixfix operators as in Agda (the current framework can support mixfix easily,
In the future, we plan to support mixfix operators as in Agda
(the current framework can support mixfix easily,
but abusing mixfix notations can harm readability).

0 comments on commit 8a48fba

Please sign in to comment.