Operational Methods in Theoretical Computer Science Corrado Priami Dipartimento Scienti co Tecnologico, Universit` di Verona a Caâ Vignal 2, Strada le Grazie 1, 37134 Verona, Italy E-mail: priami@sci.univr.it We discuss the role of operational semantics in theoretical computer science and the bene ts of using it when realizing complex systems. We report a brief history and discuss its development. Since the very beginning of computer science, the behaviour of machines has been given through an operational approach which describes the transitions between states that a machine performs while computing. The term operational semantics appeared in the literature during the sixties due to McCarthy and Lucas. A program is seen as a sequence of atomic instructions operating on the states of the machine. States consist of the program itself and some auxiliary structures which represent the store or the data on which the program works. A function from states to states indicates the moves from one con guration to another. Transitions can be labelled by additional information on the activity performed. A run of a program (or computation) is represented through a sequence of states where each state is connected to the next one through the transition function. PL/I
/lp/association-for-computing-machinery/operational-methods-in-theoretical-computer-science-QMrSzF0fn9