Project under realisation:
Foundations of Algebraic Specification and Formal Software Development
This is a monograph which presents mathematical foundations for
formal software specification and development.
It concentrates on developing basic concepts and studying their fundamental
properties rather than on demonstrating how these are to be used in the
practice of software construction which we regard as a very important but
necessarily separate topic.
As reflected in the title of the book, our primary motivation is the
specification and development of software although many of the topics we
discuss are applicable to hardware systems as well.
The book is in the tradition of algebraic specification but
deliberately diverges somewhat from what many people would regard as
the mainstream of this subject.
The more general view of software specification which it presents is one of its
most important features.
The book is self-contained, although mathematical maturity and some
acquaintance with the problems of software design are prerequisites.
The intended audience is researchers, postgraduate students and
final-year undergraduate students in computer science.
It is not intended as a textbook although the preliminary chapters contain many
exercises and may be used in this way.
Availability
The book is under development: all chapters exist in draft form, and
some are essentially finished.
If you are seriously interested
and willing to provide us with some comments, corrections, etc., you
may contact us and ask for a copy of the chapters that are ready.
The list of chapters and their very brief description is here:
Don Sannella
(dts@inf.ed.ac.uk)
Andrzej Tarlecki
(tarlecki@mimuw.edu.pl)