The VDM-SL Reference Guide

The readership will not just consist of programmers. It will also appeal to system designers, to customers wishing to specify their requirements, to evaluators of systems, and to lecturers and software engineering students. In short, anyone who wants to read a VDM specification More...with understanding. 2nd/3rd year computer science courses, particularly software engineering. It is anticipated as the first book on the new BSI/ISO standard for VDM, the author is secretary to BSI committee and the VD is the leading European formal method in practice. The use of formal methods of system specification and design, (ie methods based on mathematical principles) is spreading out from the specialised areas of extremely high reliability (security and life-critical systems), as the advantages of unambiguous specification and verifiable design are becoming more and more widely appreciated. This increased use is paralleled by the growth of the infrastructure of computer-based tools, books, courses, conferences, and standardisation efforts. The Vienna Development Method is a formal method for the specification and design of systems. It was devised in the IBM Vienna laboratory. It is the leading general purpose formal method in Europe - its only serious rival is Z from the programming research group at Oxford. This book forms a comprehensive and accessible reference to the features, methodology and application of the BSI/ISO standard for VDM.