Formal Models of MasterMind Tasks

Abstract

Numerous attempts at codifying examples have shown that there is no consensus on the semantics of the MasterMind Task Model. To fix this, we are formalizing the semantics of the Task Model and recording assumptions this model places on the other models in the MM architecture. At the outset, we had to choose a formalism in which to express the semantics. Two candidates seemed logical: Petri-Nets[6] and State-Charts [2]. We chose Petri-Nets. This document explains our choice and records the decisions that led up to it. 1 Introduction MasterMind encourages task-centered system design. An artifact of this design is a stored representation of the task hierarchy. Task hierarchies sequence user events with application and presentation method invocation and i/o. The intention is that: 1. we can build a task interpreter that executes the task hierarchy so that designers can prototype their designs, and 2. we can reason about properties of the task hierarchy to implement design critics and cons..