Logic in Computer Science: Modelling and Reasoning About Systems - International Economy Edition

by Mark Ryan Michael Huth

***** INTERNATIONAL EDITION ***** ***** INTERNATIONAL EDITION ***** ***** INTERNATIONAL EDITION *****

Genres: Computer Science, Logic, Mathematics, Textbooks, Nonfiction, Programming, Reference

427 pages, Paperback

First published December 28, 1999

Reviews

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book for Verification module for SSE. I read the fourth chapter about program verification and it provided me with a great foundation for my exams :)

[Lacie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this for class, but it was actually surprisingly palatable. When I couldn’t understand the instructors or follow their logic in class, this book really laid things out in a way that was intuitive to understand. The caveat is, I’ve been working in the computing industry for over a decade now, so I have familiarity with the coding concepts and logic issues that the book is trying to address. In my younger less knowledgeable days, I doubt this would have been an easy read.

Basically, this book tackles the problem of trying to rigorously validate a program’s correctness. Imagine writing spaghetti code in such a way that you lose the ability to resolve all the possible outputs or inputs. Shit keeps breaking, or worse, hacked by someone who was able to find a system state that you didn’t consider. THAT’s basically what this topic is trying to fix, in a nutshell. It is an abstraction of the coding process — a way of thinking about your approach to code — and explains how to think logically to prove that your program works as expected. (Obviously, in practice, environmental factors like an overheating computer can cause issues with your rigorously thought-out and proven computation, but that is a whole other topic in itself.)

Anyway, as a computer/network security practitioner, I kinda dig the treatment this book gave to the topic. There’s a lot of takeaways here.

I feel like I should also give extra brownie points for the old-school font and formatting. Have you ever read science/math textbooks from the 1950s? They’re so much easier to follow than a lot of textbooks these days. I’d say this book had that similar old school feel to it. I loved that.

[RomRomov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written. Gives required for formal verification background. Contains good excersizes for self study.

[Ushan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very brief overview of the applications of logic in computer science. It begins with the discussion of propositional logic, giving two constraint-based algorithms for solving the satisfiability problem, called "linear" and "cubic" (I don't get it - how can an NP-complete problem have a cubic algorithm, unless P=NP? This book doesn't look like an artefact from another planet or the future where P has been proven to equal NP), and predicate logic. It then gives an introduction to temporal logic, illustrated by the wolf-goat-cabbage problem, modal logic, illustrated by the wise-men-and-hats problem, and discusses an optimized data structure for instances of SAT. Each chapter is too brief to be useful; fortunately, there is a further reading section in each chapter; unfortunately, it does not justify the price of the book.

[Jiaming Jiang · Rating 4 out of 5]

It gives a clear explanation about almost all the basic logics you need to know in the area of computer science, such as propositional logic, first-order logic, temporal logic and some modal logic. A great book on the introduction of logics.

[Henk Poley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very reasonable book, lots of exercises.

[Loke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Requires sure footing in abstract thinking and mathematical notation. Very thorough and shows not just how but why and what for. A very good introduction on an academic level.