On the informatics laws and deductive semantics of software

  • Authors:

  • Yingxu Wang

  • Affiliations:

  • Theor. & Empirical Software Eng. Res. Center, Univ. of Calgary, Canada

  • Venue:
  • IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part C: Applications and Reviews
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

A fundamental finding in computer science is that software, an artifact of human creativity, is not constrained by the laws and properties known in the physical world. Thus, a natural question we have to ask is "what are the constraints that software obeys?" This paper attempts to demonstrate that software obeys the laws of informatics and mathematics. This paper explores a comprehensive set of informatics and semantic properties and laws of software as well as their mathematical models. In order to provide a rigorous mathematical treatment of both the abstract and concrete semantics of software, a new type of formal semantics known as the deductive semantics is developed. The deductive models of semantics, semantic function, and semantic environment at various composing levels of programs are formally described. The findings of this paper can be applied to perceive the basic characteristics of software and the development of fundamental theories that deal with the informatics and semantic properties of software.