From abstract data types to algebraic development techniques: A shift of paradigms

Abstract

The concept of abstract data types and the corresponding series of ADT-workshops have been most fruitful for the development of algebraic specification techniques within the last two decades. Since abstract data types by now are well-established in all areas of Computer Science and algebraic specification techniques go far beyond their classical roots of universal algebra the name of the ADT-workshop has been changed to “Workshop on Algebraic Development Techniques”, where the acronym ADT has now a new interpretation. In this paper we discuss this shift of paradigms from “Abstract Data Types” to “Algebraic Development Techniques”. We show how the scope of algebraic development techniques has been extended from algebraic specification to several other formal specification approaches already and we make a proposal how the scope of this area can be seen today and ill tile future.