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“Boring Formal Methods” or “Sherlock Holmes Deduction Methods”?

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Software Technologies: Applications and Foundations (STAF 2016)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 9946))

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of common challenges in teaching of logic and formal methods to Computer Science and IT students. We discuss our experiences from the course IN3050: Applied Logic in Engineering, introduced as a “logic for everybody” elective course at TU Munich, Germany, to engage pupils studying Computer Science, IT and engineering subjects on Bachelor and Master levels. Our goal was to overcome the bias that logic and formal methods are not only very complicated but also very boring to study and to apply. In this paper, we present the core structure of the course, provide examples of exercises and evaluate the course based on the students’ surveys.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    http://www4.in.tum.de/lehre/vorlesungen/Logic/WS1213/index.shtml.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

    Maria Spichkova

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  1. Maria Spichkova
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Correspondence to Maria Spichkova .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Informatica, Universita di Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Paolo Milazzo

  2. Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, Hungary

    Dániel Varró

  3. Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria

    Manuel Wimmer

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Spichkova, M. (2016). “Boring Formal Methods” or “Sherlock Holmes Deduction Methods”?. In: Milazzo, P., Varró, D., Wimmer, M. (eds) Software Technologies: Applications and Foundations. STAF 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9946. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50230-4_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50230-4_18

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-50229-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-50230-4

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