Trustworthy Systems

Improving the safety of the Pancake language

Authors

Halogen Truong

    School of Computer Science and Engineering
    UNSW,
    Sydney 2052, Australia

Abstract

Pancake is a research programming language with the goal of achieving low-level programming that is formal verification friendly. However, the compiler's lack of any kind of type safety, though originally intentional, has revealed to be a major usability issue as the language sees more rigorous use. The syntax for its simple type system compounds the issue, making code brittle to changes and prone to subtle mistakes. This project addresses this problem by extending the language and the compiler to shift burdens of identifying type errors away from the programmer. The solution focuses on reporting type errors when they occur, minimising the syntax burden associated with type checking and preventing type errors through new syntax that preserves programmer intent. Evaluating this solution against Pancake's key design goals reveals strong improvements in the usability of the language, and a number of further avenues of improvement.

BibTeX Entry

  @mastersthesis{Truong:be,
    address          = {unswaddr},
    author           = {Halogen Truong},
    month            = nov,
    paperUrl         = {https://trustworthy.systems/publications/theses_public/25/Truong%3Abe.pdf},
    school           = {School of Computer Science and Engineering},
    title            = {Improving the Safety of the {Pancake} Language},
    year             = {2025}
  }

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