I would say that is has the level of Gries' boek, in the sense that it can be read almost without any mathematical background, but it is more in the style of the latter in requiring a mathematical attitude. I consider the latter definitely not a book for first year students, whereas Gries and Backhouse both could serve that role very well. I think that Gries is quite old-fashioned by now, not paying attention any attention to calculational proofs; I conder prediacte calculus as the assembly language of program verification and Gries' book demonstrates this point of vieuw. backhouse is more modern and shows "style". Doaitse Swierstra On dinsdag, apr 15, 2003, at 23:51 Europe/Amsterdam, David Bakin wrote:

How would this book relate - in subject, difficulty, audience - to:

The Science of Programming by Gries? Algebra of Programming by Bird, De Moor, Moor?

Thanks! - Dave

-----Original Message----- From: Doaitse Swierstra [mailto:doaitse@cs.uu.nl] Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 12:38 PM To: Bill Wood Cc: Doaitse Swierstra; haskell-cafe@haskell.org Subject: Re: [OT[ proving programs for novices

One might be interested in the newly published book by Roland Backhouse: "Program Construction : Calculating Implementations from Specifications"

http://www.wiley.com/remtitle.cgi?0470848820

I quote from the publishers web site:

"The ever-increasing dependence of our lives and livelihoods on the correct functioning of computer software means that logic and program correctness are core elements of all good computer science degrees. This book presents both these topics in one self-contained text.

The focus of the book is on "correct-by-construction" program design -- the discipline of calculating programs from their specifications. Modern, calculational logic is introduced in combination with key program construction principles, such as the assignment axiom, loop invariants and bound functions. This material is intertwined with motivational discussion, programming examples and challenging problem-solving exercises, bringing the book alive for its intended audience, undergraduates in computer science and mathematics, as well as professional programmers wishing to further develop their programming skills.

The book covers the elements of logic and program correctness that form the foundations of further study --- the logical connectives and their algebraic properties, induction, quantifiers and program construction rules. Substantial examples of program construction are included. Many exercises are provided, all with detailed solutions. "

Doaitse Swierstra

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