Handbook

Reasoning involves taking what facts you know (or assume) to be true, and calculating what the consequences will be. Reasoning is what everyone does every day in real life: for example, *!#!* the traffic is bad this morning! I'm going to be late for work. My work says if employees arrive late, they must work overtime. I'll be working overtime tonight. This course applies reasoning to computer programming. It involves analysing the behaviour of the program using mathematical logic and creating a specification. This specification allows you to prove exactly what the program does. It means it is impossible for the program to contain any kind of programming error. This has important consequences for software development. It means, for example, a great deal less testing is required because you, the programmer, will be able to proudly promise that the program that you have produced is "perfect".