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An informal look at formal methods

Dr. S. Parthasarathy

Algologic Research & Solutions
Secunderabad, India

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Study material for "formal methods"
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This material is for personal, academic usage only.

This CDROM is a collection of tutorial material about formal methods. Although this document does not claim to be an exhaustive collection of all the material and resources available on the web, it is very rich in content. Read it at leisure, and keep it handy for future reference.
Some of the hyperlinks in this CDROM will need an on-line connection to the Internet.
This is a "platform independent" CDROM. You can read this CDROM using any web browser (HTML 4.0 and CSS-2 compatible), and under any operating system. You will also need a suitable software plug in for reading PDF files.
This CDROM does not install any software or modify any of your files or directories by itself. It does not contain any active material i.e. any program or script which get automatically executed on your computer.
It would be a good idea to download the latest version of the files, especially those which contain programs and important tutorials.
The web keeps changing all the time. Do not be disappointed if some of these links do not work any more, when you look for them in the web.
Please send your comments, suggestions and opinions about this page, to S. Parthasarathy
The date and important details about this CDROM are given in the Administrivia section.

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Only a lucky few can learn from the guru

You can choose from a whole lot of training services from Algologic .

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Learning resources

Before you take the plung into the awesome world of formal methods, you must understand the relationship between mathematics and logic.
Let's start from the very beginning, a very good place to start : Start with this amazing collection of references to material on formal methods. You will need a whole lifetime to fully study all the material referenced to here.
Who else would know the importance of "formal methods" than NASA ? Take a peep at NASA's formal methods collections.
And here is a list of all (almost) organisations related to formal methods .
Closer home in India, IARCS is the best place to start looking for colleagues in this field of formal methods. IARCS also organises FSTTCS, a highly potent conference related to theoretical aspects of computer science.
If you want to see true stories about blunders which people have done by using careless programming. Read RISKS DIGEST. Subscribe now, and get this e- newsletter for free. Here is a specimen issue.

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Proofs

Get the fundamentals right. Here is a good starting point for proofs.
Here is a (longish) introduction to proofs. You must be connected to the w-w-web to follow the entire introduction (given as interlinked pages).
When all other methods of proof fail, try these unconventional proof methods.

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Methods and tools

It would be easier to count the numbers of stars in the sky, than catalogue all the formal methods and related techniques. Here is just a representative sample. If you do'nt find your favourite method in this list, you can always look it up in the world-wide-virtual library created and maintained by J P Bowen.

(Note: The following list is presented in no particular order)

Z, B, VDM, CSP, Statecharts, Petri nets, temporal logic
A catalogue of FM tools. Notice that a whole lot of tools work on Linux.
Why is good (and free) software always written under Linux ?

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All the rest (almost).....

If you wish to work with Formal Methods, you should be aware of Latex and its usage. Never heard of Latex ? Not to worry. Start here .
To understand how a program works, we need some way to abstract the program itself. Lambda calculus provides a framework for such abstraction. This is a very important technique used in a variety of ways. Here is a lighter tutorial, and here is a one page overview.
Use Ada for programming high-integrity systems.
Do'nt use a sledge hammer when a teaspoon would do. Think of light-weight formal methods , for easy transition to formal methods.
BNF : Here is a famous and versatile light-weight formal method. It is more useful than you can ever imagine.

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