Research and Advances

Predicative programming Part II

Part I of this two-part paper presented a new semantics of programs. Each program is considered to be a predicate, in a restricted notation, that specifies the observable behavior of a computer executing the program. We considered a variety of notations, including assignment, composition (semicolon), deterministic choice (if), nondeterministic choice, definition (nonrecursive and recursive), and variable declaration. We did not consider any input or output notations, or concurrency; that is the subject of Part II. We assume the reader is familiar with Part I, so that we can build on ideas presented there.

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Research and Advances

Predicative programming Part I

Programs are given a new semantics with the merit that a specification written as a first-order predicate can be refined, step by step, to a program via the rules of Predicate Calculus. The semantics allows a free mixture of predicate and programming notations, and manipulation of programs.

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