Abstract State Machines 1988-1998: Commented ASM Bibliography

An annotated bibliography of papers which deal with or use Abstract State Machines (ASMs), as of January 1998.Comment: Also maintained as a BibTeX file at http://www.eecs.umich.edu/gasm

Abstraction and registration: conceptual innovations and supply effects in Prussian and British Copyright (1820-50)

It is one of the orthodoxies of modern copyright law that the enjoyment and the exercise of the rights granted “shall not be subject to any formality” (Berne Convention 1886, Berlin revision 1908, Art.4), such as a registration requirement. In this article, we trace the origins of this provision to a conceptual shift that took place during the early 1800s. Specific regulations of the book trade were superseded by the protection of all instantiations (such as performances, translations and adaptations) of abstract authored work. For two seminal copyright acts of the period, the Prussian Act of 1837 and the UK Act of 1842, we show there was considerable concern about the economic implications of this new justificatory paradigm, reflected in a period of experimentation with sophisticated registration requirements. We indicate market responses to these requirements and plea for a reconsideration of “formalities” as redressing justificatory problems of copyright in the digital environment

The Rascal meta-programming language - a lab for software analysis, transformation, generation & visualization

National audienceThis paper summarizes the goals and features of a do- main specific programming language called Rascal. On the one hand it is designed to facilitate software research -- research about software in general. On the other hand Rascal is applied to specific software portfolios as well, as a means to improve them and as a means to learn to understand them. Specifically, Rascal is used create tools that analyze, transform, generate or visualize source code of software products. Such tools are motivated by the need to im- prove quality of existing software or the need to lower its cost-of-ownership. More generally such tools are cre- ated to build laboratory experiments that observe and measure quality, or try and improve software quality, etc. In this paper we provide an overview of Rascal as a "domain specific language for meta programming". We first explain its goals and then its features. We end by highlighting some example applications in the area of software analysis and transformation

An Ada-like language to facilitate reliable coding of low cost embedded systems

Due to a lack of operating system (0/S) support, it is more difficult to develop programs for embedded systems than for workstations. For those developing on a low budget, the problem is often further compounded by the necessity of using inappropriate, 0/S dependent, compilers. This study attempts to ascertain those elements of a High Level Language (HLL) which are absolutely necessary and implementable to produce reliable, efficient, embedded programs without the benefit of a large budget. The study is based upon the Ada philosophy as the Ada language incorporates many desirable features for modelling real-world problems in terms of embedded solutions. By implication, the research provides a small step towards an increased availability of low cost tools to assist in the development of reliable and efficient code for use in medium performance embedded systems

Inter-module code analysis techniques for software maintenance

The research described in this thesis addresses itself to the problem of maintaining large, undocumented systems written in languages that contain a module construct. Emphasis is placed on developing techniques for analysing the code of these systems, thereby helping a maintenance programmer to understand a system. Techniques for improving the structure of a system are presented. These techniques help make the code of a system easier to understand. All the code analysis techniques described in this thesis involve reasoning with, and manipulating, graphical representations of a system. To help with these graph manipulations, a set of graph operations are developed that allow a maintenance programmer to combine graphs to create a bigger graph, and to extract subgraphs from a given graph that satisfy specified constraints. A relational database schema is developed to represent the information needed for inter-module code analysis. Pointers are given as to how this database can be used for inter-module code analysis

formal aspects of and development environments for montages

The specification of all aspects of a programming language requires adequate formal models and tool support. Montages specifications combine graphical and textual elements to yield language descriptions similar in structure, length, and complexity to those in common language manuals, but with a formal semantics. A broad range of people involved in programming language design and use may find it convenient to use Montages in combination with the tool GEM-MEX. It allows the automatic generation of high-quality documents, type-checkers, interpreters and symbolic debuggers