An Open Challenge Problem Repository for Systems Supporting Binders

TL;DR

This paper introduces ORBI, an open repository of benchmark problems for systems supporting reasoning with binders, aiming to standardize evaluation and foster progress in the field.

Contribution

It presents the design of ORBI, a shared benchmark repository to evaluate and compare systems supporting higher-order abstract syntax and binders.

Findings

ORBI enables standardized evaluation of systems with binders

It facilitates comparison of different libraries and frameworks

It promotes progress in reasoning about languages with binders

Abstract

A variety of logical frameworks support the use of higher-order abstract syntax in representing formal systems; however, each system has its own set of benchmarks. Even worse, general proof assistants that provide special libraries for dealing with binders offer a very limited evaluation of such libraries, and the examples given often do not exercise and stress-test key aspects that arise in the presence of binders. In this paper we design an open repository ORBI (Open challenge problem Repository for systems supporting reasoning with BInders). We believe the field of reasoning about languages with binders has matured, and a common set of benchmarks provides an important basis for evaluation and qualitative comparison of different systems and libraries that support binders, and it will help to advance the field.