Cambridge Computer Science Texts
2 total works
This textbook is an introduction to the design and writing of computer programs. It leads the reader through all the stages of program construction from the original specifications through to the final program. The formal verification of intermediate versions of the program is studied in considerable detail. The authors show how, given the formal specification of a program, data structure and program structure diagrams are drawn and then converted into a procedural program in a program design language (PDL). They demonstrate the conversion of PDL into a variety of real programming languages including Pascal, FORTRAN, COBOL, and Assembler. The book also includes chapters on abstract data types, analysing existing programs, and a small case study. First-year undergraduates in computer science and graduates taking courses in computing will find this a comprehensive introduction to program construction.
Computing is an exact science and the systematic study of any aspect necessarily involves the use of mathematical models. Moreover, the rate at which the subject is evolving demands a facility for developing new mathematical systems to keep pace with new computing systems and this requires an appreciation of how mathematics works. An understanding of the underlying mathematical structure facilitates the construction of suitable computer programs to perform computations. Assuming no specific knowledge of mathematics, the authors describe all the basic concepts required and progress from sets (rather than numbers) through a variety of algebraic structures that permit the precise description, specification and subsequent analysis of many problems in computing. The material included provides the essential mathematical foundations for core topics of computer science and extends into the areas of language theory, abstract machine theory and computer geometry. Computer Mathematics will be of interest to undergraduate students of computer science and mathematics, post-graduate computing 'conversion' course students and computer professionals who need an introduction to the mathematics that underpins computer science theory.