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From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: comp.specification
Subject: Re: Against executable specifications (Re: specifying OBJ in itself)
Message-ID: <21500@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Date: 19 Oct 90 12:35:20 GMT
References: <6470@vanuata.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <4955@tuminfo1.lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de> <5289@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au>
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Reply-To: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
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In article <5289@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au> brendan@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au writes:
>schoett@informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de (Oliver Schoett) writes:
>
>>The following paper makes a number of points against executability of
>>specification languages:
>
>The primary reason from avoiding executable specification languages is
>that it is sometimes necessary to discuss problems outside of the realm
>of computable functions. An important example of this is specifying the
>termination of a program.
>
Why would you need to be able to specify divergent programs? 
What possible computational interpretation would such a specification
correspond to? 

>--
>Brendan Mahony                   | brendan@batserver.cs.uq.oz       
>Department of Computer Science   | heretic: someone who disgrees with you
>University of Queensland         | about something neither of you knows
>Australia                        | anything about.