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Towards a practitioners' approach to Abadi and Lamport's method

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Formal Aspects of Computing

Abstract

Our own basic intuitions are presented when introducing the method developed by Abadi and Lamport in [AbL88a] for proving refinement between specifications of nondeterministic programs correct to people unacquainted with it. The example we use to illustrate this method is a nontrivial communication protocol that provides a mechanism analogous to message passing between migrating processes within a fixed finite network of nodes due to Kleinman, Moscowitz, Pnueli and Shapiro [KMP91]. Especially the cruel last step of a three step refinement proof of that protocol gives rise to a deeper understanding of, and some small enhancements to, Abadi and Lamport's 1988 method.

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Informatik, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Preußerstr. 1–9, 24105, Kiel, Germany

    Kai Engelhardt & Willem -Paul de Roever

Authors
  1. Kai Engelhardt
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  2. Willem -Paul de Roever
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Correspondence to Kai Engelhardt.

Additional information

Supported by ESPRIT BRA project REACT (no. 6021)

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Engelhardt, K., de Roever, W.P. Towards a practitioners' approach to Abadi and Lamport's method. Formal Aspects of Computing 7, 550–575 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01211632

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01211632

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