A Practical Theory of Programming

Eric C. R. Hehner

ISBN 10: 0387941061 / ISBN 13: 9780387941066

Published by Springer, Springer Aug 1993, 1993

About this Item

This item is printed on demand - Print on Demand Titel. Neuware -This book explores aspects of programming that are amenable to mathematical proof. The author describes a programming theory which is simpler and more comprehensive than the current theories to date. The text will be useful to students in courses on programming methodology or verification at the advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate level, as well as for software engineers in the field.Springer-Verlag KG, Sachsenplatz 4-6, 1201 Wien 260 pp. Englisch.

Seller Inventory # 9780387941066

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Practical Theory of Programming
• Publisher: Springer, Springer Aug 1993
• Publication Date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0387941061
• ISBN 13: 9780387941066
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 260W x 183H x 19D millimeters 260 millimeters width by 183 millimeters height by 19 millimeters depth
• Weight: 693 grams

About this title

Synopsis

There are several theories of programming. The first usable theory, often called "Hoare's Logic", is still probably the most widely known. In it, a specification is a pair of predicates: a precondition and postcondition (these and all technical terms will be defined in due course). Another popular and closely related theory by Dijkstra uses the weakest precondition predicate transformer, which is a function from programs and postconditions to preconditions. lones's Vienna Development Method has been used to advantage in some industries; in it, a specification is a pair of predicates (as in Hoare's Logic), but the second predicate is a relation. Temporal Logic is yet another formalism that introduces some special operators and quantifiers to describe some aspects of computation. The theory in this book is simpler than any of those just mentioned. In it, a specification is just a boolean expression. Refinement is just ordinary implication. This theory is also more general than those just mentioned, applying to both terminating and nonterminating computation, to both sequential and parallel computation, to both stand-alone and interactive computation. And it includes time bounds, both for algorithm classification and for tightly constrained real-time applications.