Computational Science

COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCE BY BRUCE G. BUCHANAN Department of Computer Science University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, Pa. " In a recent review of a 10-year software project, a grandmaster of programming opens his log book of errors and changes. He classifies 15 reasons for making changes and analyzes outstanding examples of most of them. His conclusions about the ubiquity of errors should be taped beside every programmer’s terminal. Programming has always been a humbling experience; programmin

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BY BRUCE G. BUCHANAN

Department of Computer Science
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pa.

" In a recent review of a 10-year software project, a grandmaster of programming opens his log book of errors and changes. He classifies 15 reasons for making changes and analyzes outstanding examples of most of them. His conclusions about the ubiquity of errors should be taped beside every programmer’s terminal. Programming has always been a humbling experience; programming well is even more so.

D.E. Knuth, “The errors of TEX,” Software—Practice and Experience, 19, 607-85, July 1989. (Stanford University, Calif.)

" Two formal techniques for developing a running program from informal requirements are detailed in a case study. Top-down specification is seen to have considerable power.

H. Partsch, “From informal requirements to a running program: a case study in algebraic specification and transformational programming,” Science of Computer Programming, 11, 263-97, April 1989. (Katholieke Universiteit, Nijmegen, The Netherlands)

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