Cornelis A. Middelburg

This book demonstrates that the concept of an instruction sequence offers a novel and useful viewpoint on issues relating to diverse subjects in computer science. Selected issues relating to well-known subjects from the theory of computation and the area of computer architecture are rigorously investigated in this book thinking in terms of instruction sequences. The subjects from the theory of computation, to wit the halting problem and non-uniform computational complexity, are usually investigated thinking in terms of a common model of computation such as Turing machines and Boolean circuits. The subjects from the area of computer architecture, to wit instruction sequence performance, instruction set architectures and remote instruction processing, are usually not investigated in a rigorous way at all.

This book demonstrates that the concept of an instruction sequence offers a novel and useful viewpoint on issues relating to diverse subjects in computer science. Selected issues relating to well-known subjects from the theory of computation and the area of computer architecture are rigorously investigated in this book thinking in terms of instruction sequences. The subjects from the theory of computation, to wit the halting problem and non-uniform computational complexity, are usually investigated thinking in terms of a common model of computation such as Turing machines and Boolean circuits. The subjects from the area of computer architecture, to wit instruction sequence performance, instruction set architectures and remote instruction processing, are usually not investigated in a rigorous way at all.

Notations for Software Design aims to explain formal specification and design to practitioners in software development, and to set out the ingredients of a sound software design process. It examines COLD-1, which is currently being implemented by Philips in many of its business centres. The fact that it is a wide-spectrum language which supports many styles of specification makes it an excellent basis for the volume. It also examines some widely-used informal techniques, such as Venn diagrams and Petri nets, thus creating a strong link between current and future practice. Rather than proposing new pictorial notations the authors place existing ones into a coherent framework, and explain practical ways of exploiting them in conjunction with COLD-1.