scholarly journals Closing the Gap Between Specification and Programming: VDM++ and Scala

10.29007/2w2f ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus Havelund

We argue that a modern programming language such as Scala offers a level of succinctness, which makes it suitable for program and systems specification as well as for high-level programming. We illustrate this by comparing the language with the VDM++ specification language. The comparison also identifies areas where Scala perhaps could be improved, inspired by VDM++. We furthermore illustrate Scala's potential as a specification language by augmenting it witha combination of parameterized state machines and temporal logic, defined as a library, thereby forming an expressive but simple runtime verification framework.

10.29007/svv8 ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gudmund Grov ◽  
Andrew Ireland

Hume is a Turing-complete programming language, designed to guarantee space and time bounds whilst still working on a high-level. Formal properties of Hume programs, such as invariants and transformations, have previously been verified using the temporal logic of actions (TLA). TLA properties are verified in an inductive way, which often requires lemma discovery or generalisations. Rippling was developed for guiding inductive proofs, and supports lemmas and generalisation discovery through proof critics. In this paper we show how rippling and proof critics can be used in the verification of Hume invariants represented in TLA. Our approach is based on existing work on the problem of verifying and discovering loop invariants for an imperative program. We then extend this work to Hume program transformations.


2014 ◽  
Vol 513-517 ◽  
pp. 927-930
Author(s):  
Zhi Cheng Wen ◽  
Zhi Gang Chen

Object-Z, an extension to formal specification language Z, is good for describing large scale Object-Oriented software specification. While Object-Z has found application in a number of areas, its utility is limited by its inability to specify continuous variables and real-time constraints. Linear temporal logic can describe real-time system, but it can not deal with time variables well and also can not describe formal specification modularly. This paper extends linear temporal logic with clocks (LTLC) and presents an approach to adding linear temporal logic with clocks to Object-Z. Extended Object-Z with LTLC, a modular formal specification language, is a minimum extension of the syntax and semantics of Object-Z. The main advantage of this extension lies in that it is convenient to describe and verify the complex real-time software specification.


2004 ◽  
Vol 11 (33) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aske Simon Christensen ◽  
Christian Kirkegaard ◽  
Anders Møller

We show that it is possible to extend a general-purpose programming language with a convenient high-level data-type for manipulating XML documents while permitting (1) precise static analysis for guaranteeing validity of the constructed XML documents relative to the given DTD schemas, and (2) a runtime system where the operations can be performed efficiently. The system, named Xact, is based on a notion of immutable XML templates and uses XPath for deconstructing documents. A companion paper presents the program analysis; this paper focuses on the efficient runtime representation.


Author(s):  
Muhammad Shumail Naveed ◽  
Muhammad Sarim ◽  
Kamran Ahsan

Programming is the core of computer science and due to this momentousness a special care is taken in designing the curriculum of programming courses. A substantial work has been conducted on the definition of programming courses, yet the introductory programming courses are still facing high attrition, low retention and lack of motivation. This paper introduced a tiny pre-programming language called LPL (Learners Programming Language) as a ZPL (Zeroth Programming Language) to illuminate novice students about elementary concepts of introductory programming before introducing the first imperative programming course. The overall objective and design philosophy of LPL is based on a hypothesis that the soft introduction of a simple and paradigm specific textual programming can increase the motivation level of novice students and reduce the congenital complexities and hardness of the first programming course and eventually improve the retention rate and may be fruitful in reducing the dropout/failure level. LPL also generates the equivalent high level programs from user source program and eventually very fruitful in understanding the syntax of introductory programming languages. To overcome the inherent complexities of unusual and rigid syntax of introductory programming languages, the LPL provide elementary programming concepts in the form of algorithmic and plain natural language based computational statements. The initial results obtained after the introduction of LPL are very encouraging in motivating novice students and improving the retention rate.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 78-87
Author(s):  
Yury Yuschenko

In the Address Programming Language (1955), the concept of indirect addressing of higher ranks (Pointers) was introduced, which allows the arbitrary connection of the computer’s RAM cells. This connection is based on standard sequences of the cell addresses in RAM and addressing sequences, which is determined by the programmer with indirect addressing. Two types of sequences allow programmers to determine an arbitrary connection of RAM cells with the arbitrary content: data, addresses, subroutines, program labels, etc. Therefore, the formed connections of cells can relate to each other. The result of connecting cells with the arbitrary content and any structure is called tree-shaped formats. Tree-shaped formats allow programmers to combine data into complex data structures that are like abstract data types. For tree-shaped formats, the concept of “review scheme” is defined, which is like the concept of “bypassing” trees. Programmers can define multiple overview diagrams for the one tree-shaped format. Programmers can create tree-shaped formats over the connected cells to define the desired overview schemes for these connected cells. The work gives a modern interpretation of the concept of tree-shaped formats in Address Programming. Tree-shaped formats are based on “stroke-operation” (pointer dereference), which was hardware implemented in the command system of computer “Kyiv”. Group operations of modernization of computer “Kyiv” addresses accelerate the processing of tree-shaped formats and are designed as organized cycles, like those in high-level imperative programming languages. The commands of computer “Kyiv”, due to operations with indirect addressing, have more capabilities than the first high-level programming language – Plankalkül. Machine commands of the computer “Kyiv” allow direct access to the i-th element of the “list” by its serial number in the same way as such access is obtained to the i-th element of the array by its index. Given examples of singly linked lists show the features of tree-shaped formats and their differences from abstract data types. The article opens a new branch of theoretical research, the purpose of which is to analyze the expe- diency of partial inclusion of Address Programming in modern programming languages.


Author(s):  
Pablo Nicolás Díaz Bilotto ◽  
Liliana Favre

Software developers face several challenges in deploying mobile applications. One of them is the high cost and technical complexity of targeting development to a wide spectrum of platforms. The chapter proposes to combine techniques based on MDA (Model Driven Architecture) with the HaXe language. The outstanding ideas behind MDA are separating the specification of the system functionality from its implementation on specific platforms, managing the software evolution, increasing the degree of automation of model transformations, and achieving interoperability with multiple platforms. On the other hand, HaXe is a very modern high level programming language that allows us to generate mobile applications that target all major mobile platforms. The main contributions of this chapter are the definition of a HaXe metamodel, the specification of a model-to-model transformation between Java and HaXe and, the definition of an MDA migration process from Java to mobile platforms.


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