Record Types Everywhere

Abstract

This paper introduces a novel calculus that models first-class environments and function application paradigms using standard record types. By proposing new extensions to general record types, we achieve a design that is remarkably simple and principled. We formalise this design in a core calculus and prove several desirable properties, including type soundness, normalization, and a simulation of the simply typed lambda calculus. Additionally, we extend the design with mutable references. The calculus, its semantics, along with the extension, and all stated properties are fully mechanized in the Lean 4 proof assistant, alongside an interpreter formally verified to be equivalent to the operational semantics.