Contribution to a Rigorous Analysis of Web Application Frameworks

We suggest an approach for accurate modeling and analysis of web application frameworks

Abstract State Processes

Abstract. Process-algebraic languages offer a rich set of structuring techniques and concurrency patterns which allow one to decompose complex systems into concurrently interacting simpler component processes. They abstract however almost entirely from a notion of system state. The method of Abstract State Machines (ASMs) offers powerful abstraction and refinement techniques for specifying system dynamics based upon a most general notion of structured state. The evolutions of the state are governed however by a fixed and typically unstructured program, called ’rule’, which describes a set of abstract updates occurring simultaneously at each step (synchronous parallelism). We propose to incorporate into one machine concept the advantages offered by both structuring techniques, and introduce to this purpose Abstract State Processes (ASPs), i.e. evolving processes (extended ASM programs which are structured and evolve like process-algebraic behaviour expressions) operating on evolving abstract states the way traditional ASM rules do.

Linking the Meaning of Programs to What the Compiler Can Verify

We formulate some research and development challenges that relate what a verifying compiler can verify to the definition and analysis of the application-content of programs, where the analysis comprises both experimental validation and mathematical verification. We also point to State Machines (ASM) method for high-level system design and analysis. We explain how it allows one to bridge the gap between informal requirements and detailed code by combining application-centric experimentally validatable system modeling with mathematically verifiable refinements of abstract models to compiler-verifiable code