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This book combines the features of a textbook and a handbook Researchers will find here the most comprehensive description of ASMs available today and professionals will use it as a "modeling handbook of the working software engineer. As a textbook it supports self-study or it can form the basis of a lecture course.
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Egon B¨orger and Robert St¨ark Abstract State Machines A Method for High-Level System Design and Analysis March 11, 2003 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg NewYork London Paris Tokyo Hong Kong Barcelona Budapest Preface Quelli che s’innamoran di pratica senza scienzia sono come ’l nocchieri ch’entra in navilio sanza timone o bussola, che mai ha certezza dove si vada.1 — Leonardo da Vinci Ich habe oft bemerkt, dass wir uns durch allzuvieles Symbolisieren die Sprache f¨ ur die Wirklichkeit unt¨ uchtig machen.2 — Christian Morgenstern This is the place to express our thanks. First of all we thank all those who over the years have actively contributed to shaping the novel software design and analysis method explained in this book. They are too numerous to be mentioned here. They all appear in some way or the other on the following pages, in particular in the bibliographical and historical Chap. 9 which can be read independently of the book. We then thank those who have helped with detailed critical comments on the draft chapters to shape the way our arguments are presented in this book: M. B¨orger (Diron M¨ unster), I. Craggs (IBM Hursley), G. Del Castillo (Siemens M¨ unchen), U. Gl¨ asser (Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada), J. Huggins (Kettering University, Michigan, USA), B. Koblinger (IBM Heidelberg), P. P¨ appinghaus (Siemens M¨ unchen), A. Preller (Universit´e de Montpellier, France), M.-L. Potet (INP de Grenoble, France), W. Reisig (Humboldt-Universit¨at zu Berlin, Germany), H. Rust (Universit¨ at Cot