Proceedings of the First New Zealand Formal Program Development Colloquium

Abstract

This volume gathers together papers presented at the first in what is planned to be a series of annual meetings which aim to bring together people within New Zealand who have an interest in the use of formal ideas to enhance program development. Throughout the World work is going on under the headings of "formal methods", "programming foundations", "formal software engineering". All these names are meant to suggest the use of soundly-based, broadly mathematical ideas for improving the current methods used to develop software. There is every reason for New Zealand to be engaged in this sort of research and, of growing importance, its application. Formal methods have had a large, and growing, influence on the software industry in Europe, and lately in the U.S.A. it is being seen as important. An article in September's "Scientific American" (leading with the Denver Airport debacle) gives an excellent overview of the way in which these ideas are seen as necessary for the future of the industry. Nearer to home and more immediate are current speculations about problems with the software running New Zealand's telephone system. The papers in this collection give some idea of the sorts of areas which people are working on in the expectation that other people will be encouraged to start work or continue current work in this area. We also want the fact that this works is going on to be made known to the New Zealand computer science community at large.