Semantics for probabilistic programming: higher-order functions, continuous distributions, and soft constraints

We study the semantic foundation of expressive probabilistic programming languages, that support higher-order functions, continuous distributions, and soft constraints (such as Anglican, Church, and Venture). We define a metalanguage (an idealised version of Anglican) for probabilistic computation w...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Yang, H, Staton, S, Wood, F, Heunen, C, Kammar, O
Format: Conference item
Published: Association for Computing Machinery 2016