Ebook: Program Development by Refinement: Case Studies Using the B Method

The Idea of Program Refinement Programs are complex. They are typically so complex, that they go beyond the full comprehension even of the programmer or team who designed them, with all the consequences this has. How can we cope with such complexity in a satisfactory way? An approach, advocated for a long time, is to separate a concise specification of a program - the "what" - from a possibly involved implementation - the "how". Once a specification is obtained from the set of requirements on the program, there can still be a large gap to an efficient implementation. The development from specification to implementation can then proceed by a succession oflayers, such that each layer is a refinement of the previous one. Design decisions can be introduced in refinement steps one at a time. By this, the refinement steps can be kept small and manageable. Still, the set of all requirements can be far too large to be taken completely into account in the initial specification. Even if they could, they might obscure issues more than clarify them. For example: • An information system for stored goods needs to produce an error message on il­ legal input. Yet, the exact wording - and even the language - of those messages is irrelevant for an understanding of the essence of the system. • A banking application interacts with customers with a graphical interface. Yet the specification of the graphical layout is secondary compared to the specification of the possible transactions.

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This volume contains a collection of case studies in program refinement with the B Method. They show typical program developments from problem analysis to implementation with non-trivial examples. They cover areas for which the B Method was originally conceived as well as the following novel areas: - data structures; - information management; - process control systems; - distributed systems. This volume will primarily be of interest to practitioners who either already use B and want to improve their program refinement techniques, or those who are considering using it and want to learn about its implementation. It will also provide useful background reading for students taking courses in the B Method, Formal Specification, or Refinement.

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This volume contains a collection of case studies in program refinement with the B Method. They show typical program developments from problem analysis to implementation with non-trivial examples. They cover areas for which the B Method was originally conceived as well as the following novel areas: - data structures; - information management; - process control systems; - distributed systems. This volume will primarily be of interest to practitioners who either already use B and want to improve their program refinement techniques, or those who are considering using it and want to learn about its implementation. It will also provide useful background reading for students taking courses in the B Method, Formal Specification, or Refinement.
Content:
Front Matter....Pages i-xxiv
Front Matter....Pages 1-1
Introduction to the B Method....Pages 3-37
Container Station....Pages 39-78
Minimum Spanning Tree....Pages 79-114
The B Bank....Pages 115-180
Front Matter....Pages 181-181
Parallel Programming with the B Method....Pages 183-195
Production Cell....Pages 197-254
Distributed Load Balancing....Pages 255-300
Distributed Electronic Mail System....Pages 301-322
Back Matter....Pages 323-334

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This volume contains a collection of case studies in program refinement with the B Method. They show typical program developments from problem analysis to implementation with non-trivial examples. They cover areas for which the B Method was originally conceived as well as the following novel areas: - data structures; - information management; - process control systems; - distributed systems. This volume will primarily be of interest to practitioners who either already use B and want to improve their program refinement techniques, or those who are considering using it and want to learn about its implementation. It will also provide useful background reading for students taking courses in the B Method, Formal Specification, or Refinement.
Content:
Front Matter....Pages i-xxiv
Front Matter....Pages 1-1
Introduction to the B Method....Pages 3-37
Container Station....Pages 39-78
Minimum Spanning Tree....Pages 79-114
The B Bank....Pages 115-180
Front Matter....Pages 181-181
Parallel Programming with the B Method....Pages 183-195
Production Cell....Pages 197-254
Distributed Load Balancing....Pages 255-300
Distributed Electronic Mail System....Pages 301-322
Back Matter....Pages 323-334
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