Abstract
This paper has two contributions. First, it gives a semantics for the iTask workflow management system. Second, it describes an effective methodology to construct such a semantics.
Semantics is a formal description of the meaning of language constructs. Just like any other formal description there are umpteen ways of introducing flaws in such a description. Even trained people are not very effective in spotting issues in formal text. In this paper we show that it is very well possible to describe semantics of programming languages using a modern functional programming as carrier of the specification. This enables automatic sanity checks by the language compiler, simulation of the described semantics to validate the specification, and automatic testing of properties of the semantics.
We illustrate this technique with the well-known example of simple imperative language as well as the iTask workflow management system. In our experience this methodology works very well. The combination of sanity checks, simulation and automatic testing of properties really helped to construct a trustworthy semantics for the iTask system.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Achten, P., van Eekelen, M., de Mol, M., Plasmeijer, R.: An Arrow based semantics for interactive applications. In: Morazán, M. (ed.) Proceedings of the 8th Symposium on Trends in Functional Programming, TFP 2007, New York, NY, USA, April 2-4 (2007)
Aydemir, B.E., Bohannon, A., Fairbairn, M., Foster, J.N., Pierce, B.C., Sewell, P., Vytiniotis, D., Washburn, G., Weirich, S., Zdancewic, S.: Mechanized metatheory for the masses: The poplmark challenge. In: Hurd, J., Melham, T. (eds.) TPHOLs 2005. LNCS, vol. 3603, pp. 50–65. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Barendregt, H.: The lambda calculus, its syntax and semantics (revised edition). Studies in Logic, vol. 103. North-Holland, Amsterdam (1984)
Cheney, J.: Scrap your nameplate (functional pearl). SIGPLAN Not. 40(9), 180–191 (2005)
Danvy, O.: From reduction-based to reduction-free normalization. In: Koopman, P., Plasmeijer, R., Swierstra, D. (eds.) AFP 2008. LNCS, vol. 5832, pp. 66–164. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)
Koopman, P., Plasmeijer, R.: Generic generation of elements of types. In: Proceedings of the 6th Symposium on Trends in Functional Programming, TFP 2005, Tallin, Estonia, Septmeber 23-24, pp. 163–178. Intellect Books, Bristol (2005) ISBN 978-1-84150-176-5
Benzmüller, C.E., Brown, C.E.: A structured set of higher-order problems. In: Hurd, J., Melham, T. (eds.) TPHOLs 2005. LNCS, vol. 3603, pp. 66–81. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Koopman, P., Plasmeijer, R.: Fully automatic testing with functions as specifications. In: Horváth, Z. (ed.) CEFP 2005. LNCS, vol. 4164, pp. 35–61. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)
Koopman, P., Plasmeijer, R., Achten, P.: An executable and testable semantics for iTasks. In: Scholz, S.-B. (ed.) Revised Selected Papers of the 20th International Symposium on the Implementation and Application of Functional Languages, IFL 2008, pp. 53–64. University of Hertfordshire, UK (2008)
Lakin, M.R., Pitts, A.M.: A metalanguage for structural operational semantics. In: Morazán, M. (ed.) Trends in Functional Programming, vol. 8, pp. 19–35. Intellect (2008)
Lee, S.-Y., Lee, Y.-H., Kim, J.-G., Lee, D.C.: Workflow system modeling in the mobile healthcare B2B using semantic information. In: Gervasi, O., Gavrilova, M.L., Kumar, V., Laganá, A., Lee, H.P., Mun, Y., Taniar, D., Tan, C.J.K. (eds.) ICCSA 2005. LNCS, vol. 3481, pp. 762–770. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Ludäscher, B., Altintas, I., Berkley, C., Higgins, D., Jaeger, E., Jones, M., Lee, E., Tao, J., Zhao, Y.: Scientific workflow management and the Kepler system. Concurrency and Computation: Practice & Experience 18, 2006 (2005)
de Mol, M.: Reasoning About Functional Programs - Sparkle: a proof assistant for Clean. PhD thesis, Institute for Computing and Information Sciences, Radboud University Nijmegen,(2009) ISBN 978-90-9023885-2
de Mol, M., van Eekelen, M., Plasmeijer, R.: The mathematical foundation of the proof assistant Sparkle. Technical Report ICIS-R07025, Institute for Computing and Information Sciences, Radboud University Nijmegen, (November 2007)
Nielson, H., Nielson, F.: Semantics with applications: a formal introduction. John Wiley & Sons, Chichester (1992)
Plasmeijer, R., Achten, P.: iData for the world wide web - Programming interconnected web forms. In: Hagiya, M., Wadler, P. (eds.) FLOPS 2006. LNCS, vol. 3945, pp. 242–258. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)
Plasmeijer, R., van Eekelen, M.: Functional programming and parallel graph rewriting. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading (1993) ISBN 0-201-41663-8
Plotkin, G.D.: The origins of structural operational semantics. Journal of Logic and Algebraic Programming 60-61, 3–15 (2004)
Russell, N., ter Hofstede, A., van der Aalst, W.: newYAWL: specifying a workflow reference language using coloured Petri nets. In: Proceedings of the 8th 2007 (2007)
Sewell, P., Nardelli, F.Z., Owens, S., Peskine, G., Ridge, T., Sarkar, S., Strniša, R.: Ott: effective tool support for the working semanticist. SIGPLAN Not. 42(9), 1–12 (2007)
Stirling, C.: The joys of bisimulation. In: Brim, L., Gruska, J., Zlatuška, J. (eds.) MFCS 1998. LNCS, vol. 1450, pp. 142–151. Springer, Heidelberg (1998)
Stoy, J.E.: Denotational Semantics: The Scott-Strachey Approach to Programming Language Theory. MIT Press, Cambridge (1977)
Team, T.C.D.: The Coq proof assistant reference manual, (version 7.0) (1998), http://pauillac.inria.fr/coq/doc/main.html
Urban, C., Pitts, A.M., Gabbay, M.J.: Nominal unification. Theoretical Computer Science 323, 473–497 (2004)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Koopman, P., Plasmeijer, R., Achten, P. (2010). An Effective Methodology for Defining Consistent Semantics of Complex Systems. In: Horváth, Z., Plasmeijer, R., Zsók, V. (eds) Central European Functional Programming School. CEFP 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6299. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-17685-2_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-17685-2_7
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-17684-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-17685-2
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)