CSCI2951-Y

Special Topics in Formal Semantics and Notional Machines

Spring 2019

The course will bridge two hitherto separate but deeply related areas of investigation on the behavior of programs. Formal semantics arise from the programming languages community while notional machines arise from computer science education; both provide a description of program behavior and enable static reasoning. We will assume a background in programming language semantics, and view the notional machines proposed in the literature through this lens to identify their strengths and weaknesses. The rest should be a catalog of how we can improve both notational machines and formal semantics.