4 ms·

Is this what session types are aiming to resolve?

• thelittlenag 7y ago
  From what I understand session types capture the valid state transitions, and messages for each, that define the hyper-state of the two parties communicating. This means that they are only capable of describing session-oriented protocols. But a protocol can, in theory, involve more than two parties, and not involve any kind of logical or persistent notion of a session. It's just that sessions are really, really common. That doesn't mean that session types aren't worthwhile, only that they attack the problem of safely representing one particular next-higher-level abstraction. Session types also predicated somewhat on formal guarantees being something worthwhile. As an academic exercise I'm in favor, but in terms of having practical, working tools that I can use today that useful but lack formal guarantees, well I'd rather have good tools today rather than perfect tools never. And that's my lament. I've yet to see good tools for building protocols.
  • naasking 7y ago
    > From what I understand session types capture the valid state transitions, and messages for each, that define the hyper-state of the two parties communicating. Multiparty session type systems are available [1]. [1] http://mrg.doc.ic.ac.uk/publications/less-is-more-multiparty-session-types-revisited/preprint.pdf http://mrg.doc.ic.ac.uk/publications/less-is-more-multiparty...