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From: dts@cs.ed.ac.uk (Don Sannella)
Newsgroups: comp.specification
Subject: Re: The best tutorial on formal specifications
Message-ID: <11275@skye.cs.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 22 May 91 21:18:03 GMT
References: <34341@mimsy.umd.edu> <34698@mimsy.umd.edu> <1991May21.145227.9474@porthos.cc.bellcore.com> <3572@charon.cwi.nl>
Sender: nnews@cs.ed.ac.uk
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Edinburgh
Lines: 33

In article <3572@charon.cwi.nl>, arie@cwi.nl (Arie v. Deursen) writes:
> 
> An excellent _book_ on formal specifications is:
> @BOOK{GM86,
>   KEY           = "GM86",
>   EDITOR        = "N. Gehani and A.D. McGettrick",
>   TITLE         = "Software specification techniques",
>   PUBLISHER     = "Addison-wesley publishing company",
>   YEAR          = 1986
> }
> 
> The book brings together 21 important (and by now sometimes "classical")
> articles on (formal) specification. The articles are grouped in four sections,
> each of which considers a particular aspect of the subject.
> The book is from 1986, so _very_ recent articles are not covered.

This is a nice collection, but VERY out of date.  Although the publication date
is 1986, all the articles except one are about 10 years old or even older.
I don't know about other specification techniques, but algebraic specification
techniques (which I do know about) have advanced practically out of recognition
since then.

Don Sannella
University of Edinburgh

P.S. A fairly up-to-date survey (NOT a tutorial) of work on algebraic specification
with an extensive bibliography is the following.

M. Bidoit, H.-J. Kreowski, P. Lescanne, F. Orejas and D. Sannella (editors).
Algebraic System Specification and Development: A Survey and Annotated Bibliography.
Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (1991).

This is due to appear any day now.