Abstract State Machines 2003

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Workshop on Abstract State Machines, ASM 2003, held in Taormina, Italy in March 2003. The 16 revised full papers presented together with 8 invited papers and 12 abstracts were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. The papers reflect the state of the art of the abstract state machine method for the design and analysis of complex software/hardware systems. Besides theoretical results and methodological progress, application in various fields are studied as well.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Workshop on Abstract State Machines, ASM 2003, held in Taormina, Italy in March 2003. The 16 revised full papers presented together with 8 invited papers and 12 abstracts were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. The papers reflect the state of the art of the abstract state machine method for the design and analysis of complex software/hardware systems. Besides theoretical results and methodological progress, application in various fields are studied as well.

Abstract state machines (ASM) sharpen the Church-Turing thesis by the c- sideration of bounded resources for computing devices. They view computations as an evolution of a state. It has been shown that all known models of com- tation can be expressed through speci?c abstract state machines. These models can be given in a representation-independent way. That is one advantage of transferring these models to ASM. The main advantage is, however, to provide a unifying theory to all of these models. At the same time ASM can be re?ned to other ASMs. Stepwise re?nement supports separation of concern during so- ware development and will support component-based construction of systems thus providing a foundation of new computational paradigms such as industrial programming, programming-in-the-large, and programming-in-the-world. ASM 2004 continued the success story of the ASM workshops. Previous workshops were held in the following European cities: Taormina, Italy (2003); Dagstuhl, Germany (2002); Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain (2001); Monte Verita, Switherland (2000); Toulouse, France (1999); Magdeburg, Germany (1998); Cannes, France (1998, 1997); Paderborn, Germany (1996); and H- burg, Germany (1994). The ASM workshops have had predecessors, e.g., the famous Lipari Summer School in 1993, whose in?uential outcome was the f- damental Lipari Guide.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First International Conference of Abstract State Machines, B and Z, ABZ 2008, held in London, UK, in September 2008. The conference simultaneously incorporated the 15th International ASM Workshop, the 17th International Conference of Z Users and the 8th International Conference on the B Method. The 44 revised full papers presented together with 4 invited contributions were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The conference fosters the cross-fertilization of three rigorous methods for the design and analysis of hardware and software systems - both in academia and industry - namely Abstract State Machines, B, and Z. Covering a wide range of research spanning from theoretical and methodological foundations to tool support and practical applications, the contributions are organized in topical sections on abstract state machines, B papers, Z papers, ABZ short papers, and the papers of the Verified Software Repository Network (VSR-net) workshop.

“Professional engineers can often be distinguished from other designers by the engineers’ ability to use mathematical models to describe and 1 analyze their products.” This observation by Parnas describes the de facto professional standards in all classical engineering disciplines (civil, mechanical, electrical, etc.). Unf- tunately, it is in sharp contrast with current (industrial) practice in software design, where mathematical models are hardly used at all, even by those who, 2 in Holloway’s words “aspire to be engineers.” The rare exceptions are certain critical applications, where mathematical techniques are used under the general name formal methods. Yet,thesamecharacteristicsthatmakeformalmethodsanecessityincritical applicationsmakethemalsoadvantageousineverydaysoftwaredesignatvarious levels from design e?ciency to software quality. Why, then, is education failing with respect to formal methods? – failing to convince students, academics and practitioners alike that formal methods are truly pragmatic; – failing to overcome a phobia of formality and mathematics; – failing to provide students with the basic skills and understanding required toadoptamoremathematicalandlogicalapproachtosoftwaredevelopment. Until education takes these failings seriously, formal methods will be an obscure byway in software engineering, which in turn will remain severely impoverished as a result.

Formal methods have been applied successfully to the verification of medium-sized programs in protocol and hardware design. However, their application to more complex systems, resulting from the object-oriented and the more recent component-based software engineering paradigms, requires further development of specification and verification techniques supporting the concepts of reusability and modifiability. This book presents revised tutorial lectures given by invited speakers at the Second International Symposium on Formal Methods for Components and Objects, FMCO 2003, held in Leiden, The Netherlands, in November 2003. The 17 revised lectures by leading researchers present a comprehensive account of the potential of formal methods applied to large and complex software systems such as component-based systems and object systems. The book makes a unique contribution to bridging the gap between theory and practice in software engineering.