This volume presents the proceedings of the 2nd VDM-Europe Symposium held in Dublin, Ireland, September 12-16, 1988. VDM, the Vienna Development Method, is a formal method for software engineering. It is being applied to an increasing number of projects by companies throughout Europe and there is an active international research programme supporting this process. \"VDM - The Way Ahead\" is the second of a series of symposia sponsored by the Commission of the European Communities (CEC) and organised by VDM-Europe. The term \"formal method\" refers to mathematically formal software specification and production methods. These methods aim to increase the quality of software in two related ways: by improving the specification and by making verification during the software production process more effective and easier to audit. The symposium proceedings focus on five areas of interest: education and technology transfer, experience and use of VDM, tools and support environments, method development and foundation at work, the standardisation of VDM. The proceedings are of interest to all those concerned with the application of more rigorous approaches to software development and the associated theoretical foundations.Content: Front Matter....Pages -Computing is a physical science....Pages 1-1Structuring for the VDM specification language....Pages 2-25Correctness for beginners....Pages 26-47Understanding an informal description: Office documents architecture, an ISO standard....Pages 48-63Towards a formal definition of GKS and other graphics standards....Pages 64-73Report from the BSI panel for the standardisation of VDM (IST/5/50)....Pages 74-78Formal methods in standards—A report from the BCS working group....Pages 79-85The B tool (Abstract)....Pages 86-87Specification of an operating system kernel forest and VDM compared....Pages 88-100Compiler prototyping with VDM and standard ML....Pages 101-115

2025-08-20