(In-)Formal Methods: The Lost Art - COMP6721
Faculty: Faculty of Engineering
School: School of Computer Science and Engineering
Course Outline: http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~cs6721
Campus: Sydney
Career: Undergraduate
Units of Credit: 6
EFTSL: 0.12500 (more info)
Indicative Contact Hours per Week: 3
Enrolment Requirements:
Prerequisite: MATH1081 or 6uc MATH2###, and 12uc COMP3###.
CSS Contribution Charge: 2 (more info)
Tuition Fee: See Tuition Fee Schedule
Further Information: See Class Timetable
View course information for previous years.
Description
Unusually, this course does not take the traditional route of teaching that science first, and then turning it into practical programming "tools-of-thought". Instead, we teach the mental tools first, try them on examples and only then, once their effectiveness has been demonstrated, will we look behind the scenes to see where they come from.
Initially the material will deal with conventional programs, those that much "give the right output". (this is known as functional correctness, and a sorting program is a simple example). Later in the course we will look at additional correctness criteria, such as security (perform this calculation in a way that keeps part of the answer hidden) and randomisation (implement over-the-internet protocols that depend intrinsically on coin-flipping). Those last two topics will draw on up-to-the-minute research.