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Chief Chefs of Z to Alloy: Using a Kitchen Example to Teach Alloy with Z

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Teaching Formal Methods (TFM 2009)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 5846))

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Abstract

Z is a well-defined and well-known specification language. Unfortunately, it takes significant expertise to use existing tools (such as theorem provers) to automatically check properties of Z specifications. Because Alloy is substantially similar to Z and the Alloy Analyzer offers a relatively simple method of model checking, we believe that Alloy should be largely employed in classes that teach Z. To this end, we present an online tutorial especially designed to help students transition from Z to Alloy. The tutorial includes both the classic Birthday Book example and a large real-world scenario based on a Kitchen Environment. Our experiences with novices studying the tutorial suggest that the tutorial helps students learn both Z and Alloy. In addition, novices can answer questions correctly about the approximately 500-line Kitchen Environment model after only a few hours of study.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, 20742, USA

    Sureyya Tarkan & Vibha Sazawal

Authors
  1. Sureyya Tarkan
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  2. Vibha Sazawal
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Computing Laboratory, Oxford University, Wolfson Building, Parks Road, OX1 3QD, Oxford, UK

    Jeremy Gibbons

  2. Departamento de Informática, Universidade do Minho, Campus de Gualtar, 4710-057, Braga, Portugal

    José Nuno Oliveira

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© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Tarkan, S., Sazawal, V. (2009). Chief Chefs of Z to Alloy: Using a Kitchen Example to Teach Alloy with Z. In: Gibbons, J., Oliveira, J.N. (eds) Teaching Formal Methods. TFM 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5846. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04912-5_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04912-5_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-04911-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-04912-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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