Grant Malcolm

Joseph A. Goguen

Software Engineering with OBJ: Algebraic Specification in Action is a comprehensive introduction to OBJ, the most widely used algebraic specification system. As a formal specification language, OBJ makes specifications and designs more precise and easier to read, as well as making maintenance easier and more accurate. OBJ differs from most other specification languages not just in having a formal semantics, but in being executable, either through symbolic execution with term rewriting, or more generally through theorem proving. One problem with specifications is that they are often wrong. OBJ can help validate specifications by executing test cases, and by proving properties. As well as providing a detailed introduction to the language and the OBJ system that implements it, Software Engineering with OBJ: Algebraic Specification in Action provides case studies by leading practitioners in the field, in areas such as computer graphics standards, hardware design, and parallel computation. The case studies demonstrate that OBJ can be used in a wide variety of ways to achieve a wide variety of practical aims in the system development process. The papers on various OBJ systems also demonstrate that the language is relatively easy to understand, implement, and use, and that it supports formal reasoning in a straightforward but powerful way. Software Engineering with OBJ: Algebraic Specification in Action will be of interest to students and teachers in the areas of data types, programming languages, semantics, theorem proving, and algebra, as well as to researchers and practitioners in software engineering.

Algebraic Specification in Action

Software Engineering with OBJ

Joseph Goguen

Algebraic Semantics of Imperative Programs presents a self-contained and novel executable introduction to formal reasoning about imperative programs. The authors' primary goal is to improve programming ability by improving intuition about what programs mean and how they run. The semantics of imperative programs is specified in a formal, implemented notation, the language OBJ; this makes the semantics highly rigorous yet simple, and provides support for the mechanical verification of program properties. OBJ was designed for algebraic semantics; its declarations introduce symbols for sorts and functions, its statements are equations, and its computations are equational proofs. Thus, an OBJ program is an equational theory, and every OBJ computation proves some theorem about such a theory. This means that an OBJ program used for defining the semantics of a program already has a precise mathematical meaning. Moreover, standard techniques for mechanizing equational reasoning can be used for verifying axioms that describe the effect of imperative programs on abstract machines. These axioms can then be used in mechanical proofs of properties of programs. Intended for advanced undergraduates or beginning graduate students, Algebraic Semantics of Imperative Programs contains many examples and exercises in program verification, all of which can be done in OBJ.

Grant Malcolm

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