Embedding Dynamic Dataflow in a Call-by-Value Language

This paper describes FrTime, an extension of Scheme designed for writing interactive applications. Inspired by functional reactive programming, the language embeds dynamic dataflow within a call-by-value functional language. The essence of the embedding is to make program expressions evaluate to nodes in a dataflow graph. This strategy eases importation of legacy code and permits incremental program construction. We have integrated FrTime with the DrScheme programming environment and have used it to develop several novel applications. We describe FrTime’s design and implementation in detail and present a formal semantics of its evaluation model.