Distributive Computability

Abstract

This thesis presents a series of theoretical results and practical realisations about the theory of computation in distributive categories. Distributive categories have been proposed as a foundational tool for Computer Science in the last years, starting from the papers of R.F.C. Walters. We shall focus on two major topics: distributive computability, i.e., a generalized theory of computability based on distributive categories, and the Imp(G) language, which is a language based on the syntax of distributive categories. The link between the former and the latter is that the functions computed by Imp(G) programs are exactly the distributively computable functions.