Aaron R. Bradley – författare

Computational logic is a fast-growing field with applications in artificial intelligence, constraint solving, and the design and verification of software and hardware systems. Written with graduate and advanced undergraduate students in mind, this textbook introduces computational logic from the foundations of first-order logic to state-of-the-art decision procedures for arithmetic, data structures, and combination theories.

This textbook also presents a logical approach to engineering correct software. The increasing ubiquity of computers makes implementing correct systems more important than ever. Verification exercises develop the reader''s facility in specifying and verifying software using logic. The treatment of verification concludes with an introduction to the static analysis of software, an important component of modern verification systems.

For readers interested in learning more about computational logic, decision procedures, verification, and other areas of formal methods, the final chapter outlines courses of further study.

To learn to program is to be initiated into an entirely new way of thinking about engineering, mathematics, and the world in general. Computation is integral to all modern engineering disciplines, so the better you are at programming, the better you will be in your chosen field.

The author departs radically from the typical presentation by teaching concepts and techniques in a rigorous manner rather than listing how to use libraries and functions. He presents pointers in the very first chapter as part of the development of a computational model that facilitates an ab initio presentation of subjects such as function calls, call-by-reference, arrays, the stack, and the heap. The model also allows students to practice the essential skill of memory manipulation throughout the entire course rather than just at the end. As a result, this textbook goes further than is typical for a one-semester course -- abstract data types and linked lists, for example, are covered in depth. The computational model will also serve students in their adventures with programming beyond the course: instead of falling back on rules, they can think through the model to decide how a new programming concept fits with what they already know.

The book is appropriate for undergraduate students of engineering and computer science, and graduate students of other disciplines. It contains many exercises integrated into the main text, and the author has made the source code available online.