Abstract

: This paper outlines a research programme in algebraic engineering. It starts with a review of classical algebraic specification for abstract data types, such as integers, vectors, booleans, and lists. Software engineering also needs abstract machines, recently called "objects," that can communicate concurrently with other objects, and that have local states with visible "attributes" that are changed by inputs. Hidden algebra is a new development in algebraic semantics for such systems; its most important results are powerful hidden coinduction principles for proving behavioral properties, especially behavioral refinement. 1 Introduction In view of the title of this conference, I should confess to being an algebraic engineer in (perhaps) the following four different senses: 1. I use algebra to build real software systems. 2. I build huge algebras to help build software systems. 3. I build software tools to help deal with these huge algebras. 4. I build new kinds of algebra, to get be...

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