Drawing Programs: The Theory and Practice of Schematic Functional Programming - Softcover

Addis, Tom; Addis, Jan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1848826176 ISBN 13: 9781848826175

Publisher: Springer, 2010

Synopsis

Drawing Programs: The Theory and Practice of Schematic Functional Programming describes a diagrammatic (schematic) approach to programming. It introduces a sophisticated tool for programmers who would rather work with diagrams than with text. The language is a complete functional language that has evolved into a representation scheme that is unique. The result is a simple coherent description of the process of modelling with the computer. The experience of using this tool is introduced gradually with examples, small projects and exercises. The new computational theory behind the tool is interspersed between these practical descriptions so that the reasons for the activity can be understood and the activity, in turn, illustrates some elements of the theory Access to the tool, its source code and a set of examples that range from the simple to the complex is free (see www.springer.com/978-1-84882-617-5). A description of the tool’s construction and how it may be extended is also given. The authors’ experience with undergraduates and graduates who have the understanding and skill of a functional language learnt through using schema have also shown an enhanced ability to program in other computer languages. Readers are provided with a set of concepts that will ensure a good robust program design and, what is more important, a path to error free programming.

About this title

About the Author

Tom Addis is an Emeritus Professor of Computer Science in the School of Computing, University of Portsmouth. Since 1994 is a visiting Professor at the Science Studies Centre, Department of Psychology at the University of Bath. He has had a regular technical exchange with the University of Delft involving postgraduate students. For the last 20 years, he has been actively engaged, in conjunction with Prof. Gooding (Science Historian at the University of Bath), in modelling the 'discovery' process. He has worked with the MPRI UK since 1998 developing an expert control and assessment system for oil tankers and with Portech Ltd working on intelligent robot control. He has investigated the use of architectural and urban development theories to understand system evolution as well as exploring `metaphor' as a mechanism for human computer interaction.

Addis joined ICL Research and Advanced Development Centre in 1969 to work on computer speech recognition and user behaviour; the prototype ICL Content Addressable Files Server from which the technique of Extended Relational Analysis evolved. This was applied to developing a series of artificial intelligent systems. In 1981 he moved to Brunel University and in 1986 to the University of Reading as Professor of Computer Science. He was technical consultant to GEC Hirst Research Laboratories for nine years where he developed an engine for knowledge storage. It was during this time that the elements of Schematic Functional Programming emerged, as limitations of ERA became apparent. With Plessey he evolved a wafer manufacturing scheduling system that was deployed in their plant at Plymouth.

He has over 90 major publications since 1970, he is author of Knowledge Systems Design and co-editor of four research books. He was an Associate Editor of the Int. J. Human Computer Studies, and is a MInstP, CPhys, FBCS, FIET, CEng, CITP and FRSA.
Jan Addis is a mathematician and independent consultant. She originally joined Computer Analysts and Programmers Ltd in 1968 as a computer programmer where she produced computer generated timetables (in Assembler) for BA (then BEA) and a suite of monitoring software (in PL1 and Assembler) for the Concorde fatigue-testing program. Between 1971 and 1982 she took a career break and then returned to Reading University as an applications and support programmer. During that time she provided special teaching aids and a name-server for the Reading electronic mail system. In 1987 she linked up with Tom Addis where she investigated man-machine interfaces for programs developed within new computational paradigms. This led to the concept of the Clarity environment. In 1989 Jan developed pagination and interactive editing of the Swedish Yellow Pages. In 1990 she left the group to become a research officer at the Bath University, where she was involved with Profs. David Gooding and Tom Addis in creating the Clarity environment.

In 1996 Jan Addis became a visiting research fellow, a part-time lecturer at Portsmouth University and Managing Director of Clarity Support Ltd. Between 2001 and 2002 she worked as a Research Fellow on the Amuse Project at Portsmouth University.

From the Back Cover

Drawing Programs: The Theory and Practice of Schematic Functional Programming describes a diagrammatic (schematic) approach to programming. It introduces a sophisticated tool for programmers who would rather work with diagrams than with text. The language is a complete functional language that has evolved into a representation scheme that is unique. The result is a simple coherent description of the process of modelling with the computer. The experience of using this tool is introduced gradually with examples, small projects and exercises. The new computational theory behind the tool is interspersed between these practical descriptions so that the reasons for the activity can be understood and the activity, in turn, illustrates some elements of the theory.

Access to the tool, its source code and a set of examples that range from the simple to the complex is free (see www.springer.com/978-1-84882-617-5). A description of the tool’s construction and how it may be extended is also given.

The authors’ experience with undergraduates and graduates who have the understanding and skill of a functional language learnt through using schema have also shown an enhanced ability to program in other computer languages. Readers are provided with a set of concepts that will ensure a good robust program design and, what is more important, a path to error free programming.

Edition details

• Publisher: Springer
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1848826176
• ISBN 13: 9781848826175
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 411