Strategies and analysis techniques in functional program optimization

Abstract

This paper abstracts the contents of the PhD dissertation which has been recently defended by the author. Functional programs are commonly modelled by term rewriting systems. The execution of such programs often gives rise to useless, dangerous, and inefficient evaluation sequences which must be avoided in order to improve their computational behaviour. The thesis presents novel methods and techniques to optimize term rewriting systems either by defining new strategies to execute programs or by analyzing and transforming programs in order to improve their computational behaviour.