Abstract State Machines for the Classroom

Abstract

Abstract State Machines (hencefort referred to as just ASM) were introduced as a computation model that is more powerful and more universal than standard computation models by Yuri Gurevich in 1985. Here we provide some intuitive and motivating arguments, and characteristic examples for (the elementary version of) ASM. The intuition of ASM as a formal framework for pseudocode algorithms is highlighted. Generalizing variants of the fundamental sequential small-step version of ASM are also considered.