Thinking Programs: Logical Modeling and Reasoning About Languages, Data, Computations, and Executions (Texts & Monographs in Symbolic Computation) - Hardcover

Schreiner, Wolfgang

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 3031997042 ISBN 13: 9783031997044

Publisher: Springer, 2025

Synopsis

This book describes some basic principles that allow developers of computer programs (computer scientists, software engineers, programmers) to clearly think about the artifacts they deal with in their daily work: data types, programming languages, programs written in these languages that compute wanted outputs from given inputs, and programs that describe continuously executing systems. The core message is that clear thinking about programs can be expressed in a single, universal language, the formal language of logic. Apart from its universal elegance and expressiveness, this “logical” approach to the formal modeling of, and reasoning about, computer programs has another advantage: due to advances in computational logic (automated theorem proving, satisfiability solving, model checking), nowadays much of this process can be supported by software. This book therefore accompanies its theoretical elaborations by practical demonstrations of various systems and tools that are based on or make use of the presented logical underpinnings.

About this title

About the Author

Wolfgang Schreiner is an associate professor at the Research Institute for Symbolic Computation (RISC) of the Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria. He is working in formal methods of computer science (with previous research in parallel computing and functional programming), and has produced various software packages related to formal semantics, specification, and verification, in particular the RISC ProofNavigator, the RISC ProgramExplorer, and the RISC Algorithm Language (RISCAL). Formerly he directed a degree programme on Computer-based Learning at the Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences in Hagenberg.

From the Back Cover

This book describes some basic principles that allow developers of computer programs (computer scientists, software engineers, programmers) to clearly think about the artifacts they deal with in their daily work: data types, programming languages, programs written in these languages that compute wanted outputs from given inputs, and programs that describe continuously executing systems. The core message is that clear thinking about programs can be expressed in a single, universal language, the formal language of logic. Apart from its universal elegance and expressiveness, this “logical” approach to the formal modeling of, and reasoning about, computer programs has another advantage: due to advances in computational logic (automated theorem proving, satisfiability solving, model checking), nowadays much of this process can be supported by software. This book therefore accompanies its theoretical elaborations by practical demonstrations of various systems and tools that are based on or make use of the presented logical underpinnings.

Edition details

• Publisher: Springer
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3031997042
• ISBN 13: 9783031997044
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 660