A Computational Model for TensorFlow (An Introduction)

1st ACM SIGPLAN Workshop on Machine Learning and Programming Languages (MAPL 2017) (2017)

Abstract

TensorFlow is a powerful, programmable system for machine learning.
This paper aims to provide the basics of a conceptual framework for
understanding the behavior of TensorFlow models during training and inference:
it describes an operational semantics, of the kind common in
the literature on programming languages. More broadly, the paper
suggests that a programming-language perspective is fruitful in
designing and in explaining systems such as TensorFlow.