Vdm 88 Vdm The Way Ahead

This volume presents the proceedings of the 2nd VDM-Europe Symposium held in Dublin, Ireland, September 12-16, 1988. VDM, the Vienna Development Method, is a formal method for software engineering. It is being applied to an increasing number of projects by companies throughout Europe and there is an active international research programme supporting this process. "VDM - The Way Ahead" is the second of a series of symposia sponsored by the Commission of the European Communities (CEC) and organised by VDM-Europe. The term "formal method" refers to mathematically formal software specification and production methods. These methods aim to increase the quality of software in two related ways: by improving the specification and by making verification during the software production process more effective and easier to audit. The symposium proceedings focus on five areas of interest: education and technology transfer, experience and use of VDM, tools and support environments, method development and foundation at work, the standardisation of VDM. The proceedings are of interest to all those concerned with the application of more rigorous approaches to software development and the associated theoretical foundations.

Contains well-chosen examples and exercises A student-friendly introduction that follows a workbook type approach

Not so many years ago, it would have been difficult to find more than a handful of examples of the use of formal methods in industry. Today however, the industrial application of formal methods is becoming increasingly common in a variety of application areas, particularly those with a safety, security or financially critical aspects. Furthermore, in situations where a particularly high level of assurance is required, formal proof is broadly accepted as being of value. Perhaps the major benefit of formalisation is that it enables formal symbolic manip ulation of elements of a design and hence can provide developers with a variety of analyses which facilitate the detection of faults. Proof is just one of these possible formal activities, others, such as test case generation and animation, have also been shown to be effective bug finders. Proof can be used for both validation and verifi cation. Validation of a specification can be achieved by proving formal statements conjectured about the required behaviours of the system. Verification of the cor rectness of successive designs can be achieved by proof of a prescribed set of proof obligations generated from the specifications.

This volume presents the proceedings of the 2nd VDM-Europe Symposium held in Dublin, Ireland, September 12-16, 1988. VDM, the Vienna Development Method, is a formal method for software engineering. It is being applied to an increasing number of projects by companies throughout Europe and there is an active international research programme supporting this process. "VDM - The Way Ahead" is the second of a series of symposia sponsored by the Commission of the European Communities (CEC) and organised by VDM-Europe. The term "formal method" refers to mathematically formal software specification and production methods. These methods aim to increase the quality of software in two related ways: by improving the specification and by making verification during the software production process more effective and easier to audit. The symposium proceedings focus on five areas of interest: education and technology transfer, experience and use of VDM, tools and support environments, method development and foundation at work, the standardisation of VDM. The proceedings are of interest to all those concerned with the application of more rigorous approaches to software development and the associated theoretical foundations.

Software Engineer's Reference Book provides the fundamental principles and general approaches, contemporary information, and applications for developing the software of computer systems. The book is comprised of three main parts, an epilogue, and a comprehensive index. The first part covers the theory of computer science and relevant mathematics. Topics under this section include logic, set theory, Turing machines, theory of computation, and computational complexity. Part II is a discussion of software development methods, techniques and technology primarily based around a conventional view of the software life cycle. Topics discussed include methods such as CORE, SSADM, and SREM, and formal methods including VDM and Z. Attention is also given to other technical activities in the life cycle including testing and prototyping. The final part describes the techniques and standards which are relevant in producing particular classes of application. The text will be of great use to software engineers, software project managers, and students of computer science.

The proceedings of the fourth Vienna Development Method Symposium, VDM'91, are published here in two volumes. Previous VDM symposia were held in 1987 (LNCS 252), 1988 (LNCS 328), and 1990 (LNCS 428). The VDM symposia have been organized by VDM Europe, formed in 1985 as an advisory board sponsored by the Commission of the European Communities. The VDM Europe working group consisted of researchers, software engineers, and programmers, allinterested in promoting the industrial usage of formal methods for software development. The fourth VDM symposium presented not only VDM but also a large number of other methods for formal software development. Volume 1 contains conference contributions. It has four parts: contributions of invited speakers, papers, project reports, and tools demonstration abstracts. The emphasis is on methods and calculi for development, verification and verification tools support, experiences from doing developments, and the associated theoretical problems. Volume 2 contains four introductory tutorials (on LARCH, Refinement Calculus, VDM, and RAISE) and four advanced tutorials (on ABEL, PROSPECTRA, The B Method, and The Stack). They present a comprehensive account of the state of theart.

Formal methods enable computer architecture and software design to be mathematically proved correct before they are implemented. The complexity and time-consuming nature of such proofs have limited the applications of formal methods in the main to defence and safety-critical applications. The mural project (a joint Alvey-funded project between Manchester University and Rutherford Appleton Laboratories) has developed a software support system to help the user of formal methods. mural has created a user-friendly software environment (with extensive use of windows) that makes best use of human talents to produce computer systems that are proved to be correctly designed. Professor Cliff Jones is internationally known as the developer of the VDM system of formal notation (Vienna Development Method). This book describes the requirements, concepts, and realisation of the mural system. The authors present systematically and completely the results of this substantial research project, from the basic theoretical level to its effective implementation. The book will be of equal interest to academics working on formal methods at research level (and perhaps to graduate research students), and to practitioners and software engineers who are using - or who will have to use for defence contracts, etc. - formal methods.