[Edu-sig] Re: [Tutor] Off topic musings

[Danny Yoo]

On Sun, 19 Aug 2001 alan.gauld@bt.com wrote:

> One recurring theme in these "State of the Practice" papers 
> was the lack of a fundamental theoretical basis for computing. 
> i.e. there's nothing comparable to the laws of physics in 
> software engineering.

[some text cut]

> Since I am sure this isn't original, who has done this stuff 
> before? - Where can I get papers or books on fundamental 
> information representation/transformation theory? I assume 
> there must be something? somewhere?


David Gries has written a book called "The Science of Programming" which
states a framework for writing mathematicaly correct programs.  I bought
it after seeing Jon Bentley's recommendation in "Programming Pearls".


As is typical with me, I haven't really gotten past Chapter One yet.  
*grin* Still, from what I can glean, Gries uses the power of logic and
assertions to show how people can be confident in a program's correctness.  
There's also a chapter on "inverting" programs which looks like a lot of
fun.