-------------------------------------------------------------------------

                   B O S T O N   U N I V E R S I T Y
                      Computer Science Department
                          C O L L O Q U I U M
                     Wednesday, October 16, 3:00 PM
                       (Coffee served at 2:45 PM)
                         Seminar Room / MCS 135

                       Executable Specifications

                            Yuri Gurevich
                         Microsoft Research

                              Abstract


Some people think that executable specification is a contradiction in
terms.  We think that executable specifications will change the way
software is designed, developed, tested and documented.  Our opinion is
based on the theory of abstract state machines, extensive international
ASM experimentation with ASMs, and the applied ASM work of our own group,
the group on Foundations of Software Engineering.  The ASM theory tell us
that every computation system, at any fixed level of abstraction, can be
faithfully represented as an ASM.  The specification language AsmL,
developed by our group, makes writing ASM models practical.  Our tools
allow the developers (more and more) to experiment with their design,
validate it and enforce it.  The tools allow testers to be involved
earlier in the software development cycle and empower them to test the
intended functionality of software (and not only its robustness).

---- Bio ----

Yuri Gurevich is Sr. Researcher at Microsoft Research in Redmond, WA.  He
is also Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan, ACM Fellow,
Guggenheim Fellow, and Dr. Honoris Causa of Limburg University in Belgium.
In Microsoft, he heads the group on Foundations of Software Engineering.

Host: Leonid Levin

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
For colloquium info, including directions, see
http://cs-www.bu.edu/colloquium
-------------------------------------------------------------------------