Whiley (programming language)

Whiley
ParadigmImperative, Functional
Designed byDavid J. Pearce
First appearedJune 2010
Stable release
0.6.1 / June 27, 2022; 2 years ago (2022-06-27)
Typing disciplineStrong, safe, structural, flow-sensitive
LicenseBSD
Websitewhiley.org
Influenced by
Java, C, Python, Rust

Whiley is an experimental programming language that combines features from the functional and imperative paradigms, and supports formal specification through function preconditions, postconditions and loop invariants.[1] The language uses flow-sensitive typing also known as "flow typing."

The Whiley project began in 2009 in response to the "Verifying Compiler Grand Challenge" put forward by Tony Hoare in 2003.[2] The first public release of Whiley was in June, 2010.[3]

Primarily developed by David Pearce, Whiley is an open source project with contributions from a small community. The system has been used for student research projects and in teaching undergraduate classes.[4] It was supported between 2012 and 2014 by the Royal Society of New Zealand's Marsden Fund.[5]

The Whiley compiler generates code for the Java virtual machine and can interoperate with Java and other JVM-based languages.

  1. ^ "Whiley Homepage".
  2. ^ Hoare, Tony (2003). "The Verifying Compiler: A Grand Challenge for Computing Research". Journal of the ACM. 50: 63–69. doi:10.1145/602382.602403. S2CID 441648.
  3. ^ "Whiley v0.2.27 Released!". Archived from the original on 2016-04-12. Retrieved 2016-02-01.
  4. ^ "whiley.org/people".[permanent dead link]
  5. ^ "Marsden Fund".