Formal Methods - My 50+ Years as an Engineer, Researcher and Scientist

It all began at the IBM Lab. in Vienna, 1973–1974. I will reminisce of how VDM, the Vienna Development Method, emerged. We were to develop a compiler for PL/I. In Feb. 1974 IBM HQ curtailed this and related projects. So three of the co-developers of VDM went abroad. Peter Lucas to the US, Cliff Jones via Brussels back to the UK, and I to Denmark. With students and later, at Dansk Datamatik Center (DDC), we then developed compilers for CHILL and Ada according to the IBM Lab. Vienna ideas. They led to the design of the RAISE (Rigorous Approach to Industrial SE) Method – with RSL (the Raise Specification Language). As UN Director of the UN University’s Intl. Inst. for Software Technology, in Macau, 1991–1997, we pursued Formal Methods and their theoretical underpinnings, and applied Formal Methods to the development of systems for railways (in China), finance ministry (Vietnam), country wide telephone system (The Philippines), multi-script documents (for Mongolia), etc. I will survey these projects – emphasizing how Domain Modeling emerged. I will then outline recent work, since my retirement, at age 70 in 2007, in Domain Science and Engineering. I will end the paper by “revealing” my “emergence” as a scientist from being an engineer/researcher.