11th Estonian Winter School in Computer Science (EWSCS)
XI Eesti Arvutiteaduse Talvekool
Palmse, Estonia, March 5-10, 2006
under the auspices of European Educational Forum
Nicolas Halbwachs
Verimag
IMAG
Université Joseph Fourier (Grenoble I) / CNRS
France
Synchronous Programming: Principles, Compilation, Verification
Abstract
Synchronous programming was proposed in the early eighties, as a paradigm for designing reactive systems. Therefore, the application domain mainly consists in computer systems performing real-time control over a physical environment, like those encountered in industrial control.
In the synchronous model, the behaviour of a program is a sequence of steps (or logical instants), which can be triggered by events coming from the environment, or simply by periodic activations. All the processes share this same logical time scale, and are involved in all the reactions.
In these lectures, we will illustrate the main principles of synchronous programming through the presentation of two synchronous languages: the data-flow language Lustre, and the imperative language Esterel. Apart from a standard introduction to the languages and their use, the lecture will concern specific problems related to their semantics and their compilation, together with dedicated verification techniques.
Course materials
- N. Halbwachs. Synchronous programming of reactive systems. Slides and a short bibliography. [pdf]
About the Lecturer