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The Alma Project, or How First-Order Logic Can Help us in Imperative Programming

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Correct System Design

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 1710))

Abstract

The aim of the Alma project is the design of a strongly typed constraint programming language that combines the advantages of logic and imperative programming.

The first stage of the project was the design and implementation of Alma- 0, a small programming language that provides a support for declarative programming within the imperative programming framework. It is ob- tained by extending a subset of Modula-2 by a small number of features inspired by the logic programming paradigm

In this paper we discuss the rationale for the design of Alma-0, the ben- effts of the resulting hybrid programming framework, and the current work on adding constraint processing capabilities to the language. In particular, we discuss the role of the logical and customary variables, the interaction between the constraint store and the program, and the need for lists.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Jan Holleman, Eric Monfroy and Vincent Partington for useful discussions on the subject of this paper. Helpful comments by Tony Hoare and other two, anonymous, referees allowed us to improve the presentation.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CWI, 94079, 1090, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Krzysztof R. Apt

  2. Dept. of Mathematics, Computer Science, Physics & Astronomy University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Krzysztof R. Apt

  3. Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica, Gestionale e Meccanica Università di Udine, via delle Scienze 208, I-33100, Udine, Italy

    Andrea Schaerf

Authors
  1. Krzysztof R. Apt
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  2. Andrea Schaerf
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Fachbereich Informatik, Universität Oldenburg, Postfach 2503, D-26111, Oldenburg, Germany

    Ernst-Rüdiger Olderog

  2. Fachbereich Informatik, Universität Dortmund, Baroper Str. 301, D-44221, Dortmund, Germany

    Bernhard Steffen

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Apt, K.R., Schaerf, A. (1999). The Alma Project, or How First-Order Logic Can Help us in Imperative Programming. In: Olderog, ER., Steffen, B. (eds) Correct System Design. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1710. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48092-7_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48092-7_5

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-66624-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-48092-1

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