Edsger W. Dijkstra

Executional abstraction; The role of programming languages; States and their characterization; The characterization of semantics; The semantic characterization of a programming language; Two theorems; On the design of properly terminating; Euclid's algorithm revisited; The formal treatment of some small examples; The linear search theorem; The problem of the next permutation.

A Discipline of Programming

Carel S. Scholten

This booklet presents a reasonably self-contained theory of predicate trans former semantics. Predicate transformers were introduced by one of us (EWD) as a means for defining programming language semantics in a way that would directly support the systematic development of programs from their formal specifications. They met their original goal, but as time went on and program derivation became a more and more formal activity, their informal introduction and the fact that many of their properties had never been proved became more and more unsatisfactory. And so did the original exclusion of unbounded nondeterminacy. In 1982 we started to remedy these shortcomings. This little monograph is a result of that work. A possible -and even likely- criticism is that anyone sufficiently versed in lattice theory can easily derive all of our results himself. That criticism would be correct but somewhat beside the point. The first remark is that the average book on lattice theory is several times fatter (and probably less self contained) than this booklet. The second remark is that the predicate transformer semantics provided only one of the reasons for going through the pains of publication.

Predicate Calculus and Program Semantics

On the cruelty of teaching Computer Science

A Primer of Algol 60 Programming

Stepwise program construction. Parallelism in multi-record transactions. Finding the maximum strong components in a directed granph. trip reporte E.W.Dijkstra, summer school munich. The solution to a cyclic relaxation problem. Trip reporte IBM seminar "communication and computers". Self-stabilization in spite of distributed control. Acceptance speech for the AFIPS harry goode memorial award 1974. Speech at the occasion of an anniversary. Inside "mathematics inc". A multidisciplinary approach to mathematics. Ond the role of scientific thought. A time-wise hierarchy imposed upon the use of a two-level store. A new elephant built from mosquitoes humming in harmony. Monotonic replacement algorithms and their implementation. Trip report E.W.Dijkstra. Trip report visit ETH Zurich. A letter to my old friend Jonathan. "Craftsman or scientist?". Exercises in making programs robust. Trip report E.W.Dijkstra. how do we tell truths that might hurt?. Variation on a theme: an open letter to C.A.R hoare. A post-scriptum to EWD501. Erratum and embellishmething . A synthesis merging?. Commets at a symposium. Trip report E.W.Dijkstra. On a warning from E.A.Hauch. More on auck's warning. A collection of beautiful proofs. Mathematics inc., a private letter from its chairman. A personal summary of the gries-owicki theory. A "non Trip report". Formal techniques and sizearble programs. An exercises for Dr.R.M.Burstall. A great improvement. To H.D.Mills, chairman software methodology panel. On subgoal induction. Trip report E.W.Dijkstra. More about the function. A proof of a theorem communicated to us. Trip report E.W.Dijkstra. A parable. Trip report E.W.Dijkstra. A correctness proof for communicating processes: a small exercise. An elephant inspered by the dutch national flag. On the fact the atlantic ocean has two sides. Trip report E.W.Dijkstra. A somewhat open letter to EAA. On webster, users, bugs, and aristotle, On making solution more and more fine-grained. The mathematics behind the banker's algorithm. On two beautiful solutions designed by martin rem. Trip report E.W.Dijkstra. why naive program transformation systems are unlikely to word. The three golden rules for successful scientific research. The introduction of MAES. A class of simple communication patterns. "Why is software so expensive?" an explanation to the hardware designer. A theorem about odd powes of odd integers. Porgram inversion. On weak and strong termination. The equivalence of bounded nondeterminacy and continuity. A story that starts with a very good computer.

Selected Writings on Computing: A Personal Perspective

Charles Antony Richard Hoare

O. J. Dahl

Ole Johan Dahl

Ob-Johan Dahl

This book is the classic text in the art of computer programming. The first section represents an initial outstanding contribution to the understanding of the design of programs and the use of structured programming. The second part describes how similar principles can be applied in the design of data structures. The final section provides a synthesis of the previous two and expounds the close theoretical and practical connections between the design of data and the design of programs.

Structured Programming

Since the summer of 1973, when I became a Burroughs Research Fellow, my life has been very different from what it had been before. The daily routine changed: instead of going to the University each day, where I used to spend most of my time in the company of others, I now went there only one day a week and was most of the time -that is, when not travelling!- alone in my study. In my solitude, mail and the written word in general became more and more important. The circumstance that my employer and I had the Atlantic Ocean between us was a further incentive to keep a fairly complete record of what I was doing. The public part of that output found its place in what became known as "the EWD series", which can be viewed as a form of scientific correspondence, possible since the advent of the copier. (That same copier makes it hard to estimate its actual distribution: I myself made about two dozen copies of my texts, but their recipients were welcome to act as further nodes of the distribution tree. ) The decision to publish a se1ection from the EWD series in book form was at first highly embarrassing, but as the months went by I got used to the idea. As soon as some guiding principles had been adopted -preferably not published elsewhere, as varied and as representative as possible, etc.

Edsger W. Dijkstra

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