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Keeping logic in the trivium of computer science: a teaching perspective

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Helmut wasn’t just an outstanding researcher, he was also passionate about improving education in logic and computer science.

From Richard Zach’s obituary.

Abstract

In this paper we argue that the traditional syllabus of logic courses for computer science is outdated and missing its purposes, therefore contributing to the gradual relegation of logic from the computing curricula. We further provide some practical recommendations and directions that need to be considered in the adaptation of the logic course syllabi to the needs of modern computing practitioners.

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Notes

  1. For more about the Vienna Circle one may consult the Wikipedia entry on the Vienna Circle [38].

  2. Translated to English by Richard Zach.

  3. We thank Georg Weissenbacher and Thomas Eiter for providing this information on Helmut’s activities.

  4. See also the Wikipedia entry for Liberal arts education [37].

  5. The CS departments of ETHZ Zurich and University of Haifa are such examples.

  6. The first author presented twice in Vienna ideas that have led to this paper. Helmut Veith attended the first talk, was supportive of the ideas and provided some useful feedback that has led to revisions and additions in this version.

  7. While there is a variety of books on logic for CS, such as [6, 13, 19], they do not fit our intended vision of a unified basis, as their focus is too narrow on verification [6, 19] or automatic theorem proving [13]. See also the discussion in Section 2.5.

  8. The programming languages community has been having related discussions about helping students connect theoretical foundations to the practice of computing and system design [3].

  9. This includes Yuri Gurevich, who expressed this view in his personal communication with the first author.

  10. Tools such as Sedan [10] and Alloy [20] can be used in introductory classes for supporting teaching basic logical concepts.

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Acknowledgements

The second author was supported by the Israel Science Foundation under Grant agreement 817/15.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Computer Science, Technion-IIT, Haifa, Israel

    J. A. Makowsky

  2. Information Systems Department, Haifa University, Haifa, Israel

    A. Zamansky

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  1. J. A. Makowsky
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  2. A. Zamansky
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Correspondence to A. Zamansky.

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Makowsky, J.A., Zamansky, A. Keeping logic in the trivium of computer science: a teaching perspective. Form Methods Syst Des 51, 419–430 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10703-017-0301-z

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