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Long ago~ the welfare of a sooiety used to depend heavily on the skill and dedioation of its oraftsmen - the miller~ the blaok smith~ the oobbler and the tailor. These oraftsmen aoquired their skill by a long and poorly paid apprentioeship to some master of their oraft. They learned by imitation and experienoe~ and by tri al and error. They did not read books or study soienoe~ they knew nothing of the theory of their subjeot~ the geometry of their ru dimentary drawings~ nor the mathematios underlying their primitive oaloulations. They oould not explain how or why they used their methods; yet they worked effeotively by themselves or in small teams to oomplete their tasks at a predioted oost~ to a fairly well predioted timesoale~ and usually to the satisfaotion of their olients. The programmer of today shares many of these attributes of a oraftsman. He learns his oraft by apprentioeship in an existing team of programmers - but his apprentiaeship is highZy paid and usually very short. He develops his skill by trial; but mostly by error. He does not study theory~ or even read books on Computer Soience. He knows nothing of the logical and mathematical founda tions of his profession; and he hates to explain or justifY~ or even to dooument what he has done.
List of contents
I: Program Development and Verification.- Smoothsort, an Alternative for Sorting in Situ.- Lambek and Moser Revisited.- A General Axiom of Assignment.- Assignment and Linked Data Structures.- A Proof of the Schorr-Waite Algorithm.- Verification of Sequential Programs: Temporal Axiomatization.- Specification and Derivation of Programs.- Repaying Our Debts.- II: Denotational Semantics.- Lectures on a Mathematical Theory of Computation.- Semantic Models.- III: Abstract Data Types.- Algebras, Theories and Freeness: An Introduction for Computer Scientists.- An Analysis of Semantic Models for Algebraic Specifications.- IV: Infinite Structures.- Fundamental Properties of Infinite Trees.- Behaviors of Processes and Synchronized Systems of Processes.- V: Concurrent Programs.- A Tutorial on the Split Binary Semaphore.- A Fixed Point Approach to Applicative Multiprogramming.- Discrete Event Simulation Based on Communicating Sequential Processes.- Structure of an Operating System.
