Laff – on Programming for Correctness

LAFF - On Programming for Correctness

In this computer science course, we will present "goal oriented programming" the way Edsger Dijkstra, one of the most influential computer scientists, intended. You will learn how to derive programs hand-in-hand with their proofs of correctness. The course presents a methodology that illustrates goal-oriented programming, starting with the formalization of what is to be computed, and then growing the program hand-in-hand with its proof of correctness. The methodology demonstrates that, for a broad class of matrix operations, the development, implementation, and establishment of correctness of a program can be made systematic.

Since this technique focuses on program specifications, it often leads to clearer, correct programs in less time. The approach rapidly yields a family of algorithms from which you can then pick the algorithm that has desirable properties, such as attaining better performance on a given architecture.