Abstract State Machines: Einführung in eine Entwurfs- und Analysemethode komplexer Systeme

Objective

Goals: Learning the ASM method by means of examples. Pointing out advantages and disadvantages to other frameworks (UML, B-Method,VDM, Z, Petri-Netze, Prozessalgebra, Parnas-Tables).

Content

One of the fundamental problems of Software-Engineering is that the systems are becoming so big and complicated that a single human can no longer survey them. System crashes, incompatibilities and security problems are the consequences. By means of Abstract State Machines (ASMs) computer systems can be specified and validated in a mathematical clear and precise manner such that their security is improved dramatically. In contrast to other methods, the abstraction level can be freely chosen for ASMs, and hence complicated systems can be described in a compact way without unnecessary implementation details. Therefore, ASMs are the ideal tool for program managers as well as for software developers. Although the foundations of ASMs are based on mathematical logic, ASM specifications are readable for practitioners. ASMs comprise synchronous (sequential and parallel systems), asynchronous (distributed) systems and real-time systems. ASMs have been successfully used for the specification of programming languages like C, Java, Occam, for the specification and validation of hardware-architectures, protocols and control system. The course covers the following chapters: 1. ASM Design and Analysis Method 2. Ground Model and Refinement Method 3. Composition Techniques 4. Synchronous Multi-Agent ASMs 5. Asynchronous Multi-Agent ASMs 6. Universal Specification and Computation Model

Resources