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Studying program correctness by constructing contracts

Authors:

Timothy S. Gegg-Harrison,

Gary R. Bunce,

Rebecca D. Ganetzky,

Christina M. Olson,

Joshua D. WilsonAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, Volume 35, Issue 3

Pages 129 - 133

https://doi.org/10.1145/961290.961548

Published: 30 June 2003 Publication History

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Abstract

Because the concept of program correctness is generally taught as an activity independent of the programming process, most introductory computer science (CS) students perceive it as unnecessary and even irrelevant. The concept of contracts, on the other hand, is generally taught as an integral part of the programming process. As such, most introductory CS students have little difficulty understanding the need to establish contracts via preconditions and postconditions. In order to improve teaching program correctness concepts, we implemented ProVIDE, an enhanced integrated development environment (IDE) for Java [7]. Pro VIDE supports a modified version of the "design by contract" methodology [13] that assists its student programmers in contract construction. Rather than asking for both a precondition and postcondition for each of his/her methods, ProVIDE asks the student to simply supply a postcondition. ProVIDE then helps the student construct the appropriate precondition by leading him/her through an axiomatic proof of the correctness of the method. Thus, the proof of correctness of the method is a side-effect of the student's need to construct an appropriate precondition.

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Cited By

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Redondo CArora RNguyen Ba T(2019)Theoretical and Practical Approaches for Teaching Parallel Code Correctness2019 26th International Conference on High Performance Computing, Data and Analytics Workshop (HiPCW)10.1109/HiPCW.2019.00021(48-55)Online publication date: Dec-2019
https://doi.org/10.1109/HiPCW.2019.00021
Redondo CArora RNguyen Ba T(2019)Theoretical and Practical Approaches for Teaching Parallel Code Correctness2019 26th International Conference on High Performance Computing, Data and Analytics Workshop (HiPCW)10.1109/HiPCW.2019.00021(48-55)Online publication date: Dec-2019
https://doi.org/10.1109/HiPCW.2019.00021
Kraemer ESitaraman MHollingsworth JMottok J(2018)An Activity-Based Undergraduate Software Engineering Course to Engage Students and Encourage LearningProceedings of the 3rd European Conference of Software Engineering Education10.1145/3209087.3209100(18-25)Online publication date: 14-Jun-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3209087.3209100
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Studying program correctness by constructing contracts

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ITiCSE '03: Proceedings of the 8th annual conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education

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Information

Published In

ACM SIGCSE Bulletin Volume 35, Issue 3

Proceedings of the 8th annual conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education

September 2003

277 pages

ISSN:0097-8418

DOI:10.1145/961290

Issue’s Table of Contents

ITiCSE '03: Proceedings of the 8th annual conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
June 2003
291 pages
ISBN:1581136722
DOI:10.1145/961511
Conference Chairs:
Vassilios Dagdilelis
University of Macedonia, Greece
,
Maya Satratzemi
University of Macedonia, Greece
,
Editor:
David Finkel
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
,
Program Chairs:
Roger Boyle
University of Leeds, UK
,
Georgios Evangelidis
University of Macedonia, Greece

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 30 June 2003

Published in SIGCSE Volume 35, Issue 3

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Redondo CArora RNguyen Ba T(2019)Theoretical and Practical Approaches for Teaching Parallel Code Correctness2019 26th International Conference on High Performance Computing, Data and Analytics Workshop (HiPCW)10.1109/HiPCW.2019.00021(48-55)Online publication date: Dec-2019
https://doi.org/10.1109/HiPCW.2019.00021
Redondo CArora RNguyen Ba T(2019)Theoretical and Practical Approaches for Teaching Parallel Code Correctness2019 26th International Conference on High Performance Computing, Data and Analytics Workshop (HiPCW)10.1109/HiPCW.2019.00021(48-55)Online publication date: Dec-2019
https://doi.org/10.1109/HiPCW.2019.00021
Kraemer ESitaraman MHollingsworth JMottok J(2018)An Activity-Based Undergraduate Software Engineering Course to Engage Students and Encourage LearningProceedings of the 3rd European Conference of Software Engineering Education10.1145/3209087.3209100(18-25)Online publication date: 14-Jun-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3209087.3209100
Kochhar PLo DMendes ECounsell SPetersen K(2017)Revisiting Assert Use in GitHub ProjectsProceedings of the 21st International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering10.1145/3084226.3084259(298-307)Online publication date: 15-Jun-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3084226.3084259
Heym WSivilotti PBucci PSitaraman MPlis KHollingsworth JKrone JSridhar N(2017)Integrating Components, Contracts, and Reasoning in CS Curricula with RESOLVE: Experiences at Multiple Institutions2017 IEEE 30th Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training (CSEE&T)10.1109/CSEET.2017.40(202-211)Online publication date: Nov-2017
https://doi.org/10.1109/CSEET.2017.40
Chiang C(2006)Introducing Proofs of a Program's Termination in an Undergraduate Software Engineering Course2006 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics10.1109/ICSMC.2006.384745(3927-3931)Online publication date: Oct-2006
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSMC.2006.384745
Gegg-Harrison TBunce GGanetzky ROlson CWilson JDagdilelis VSatratzemi MBoyle REvangelidis G(2003)Studying program correctness in ProVIDEProceedings of the 8th annual conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education10.1145/961511.961624(262-262)Online publication date: 30-Jun-2003
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/961511.961624
Gegg-Harrison TBunce GGanetzky ROlson CWilson J(2003)Studying program correctness in ProVIDEACM SIGCSE Bulletin10.1145/961290.96162435:3(262-262)Online publication date: 30-Jun-2003
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/961290.961624

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