Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.
To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to upgrade your browser.
2020
In the 1960s, a full formal description was seen as a crucial and unavoidable part of creating a new programming language. A key part of that was a thorough and rigorous description of the semantics. However, in the decades since, the focus on providing this has somewhat diminished. Why was formal semantics once seen as so critical? Why did it not succeed in the ways hoped? These questions are explored by considering the history of modelbased approaches to describing programming languages, with a particular focus on the IBM Laboratory Vienna under Heinz Zemanek, and the Programming Research Group at Oxford University under Christopher Strachey. It is shown that there were a variety of different approaches to the problem, stemming from the different backgrounds of the people and groups involved. The story of formal language description is in some ways also the story of early programming languages and the integration of mathematics into the emerging new field of computer science, resu...
1996
This paper offers an assessment of what has been achieved in three decades of work on the semantics of programming languages and pinpoints some practical problems in computing which might stimulate further research. The examples sketched in this paper come from the author's own research on concurrent object oriented languages, from database practice, and from more speculative research on Internet issues.
… SERIES-UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE …, 2003
Theoretical Computer Science, 1994
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.
Przegląd Socjologiczny, 2019
Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, 2023
Recht der Werkelijkheid
BRILL eBooks, 2000
Tribuna Arqueologia 2019-2020, 2022
Procedia Engineering, 2013
Wide Angle, 1999
Deisis - Revistă de Cultură și Spiritualitate/ Zeitschrift für Kultur und Spiritualität Nr. 30, 2022
Ideology and Politics Journal, 2024
Ilorin Journal Of Human Resources Management, 2020
Research Ideas and Outcomes, 2020
Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine, 2019
Proceedings of the International Conference on Robotics, Computer Vision and Intelligent Systems, 2020
International Journal of Biological Macromolecules, 2020