Computer Science and
     Software Engineering

Computer Science and Software Engineering

TR-COSC 04/94

Pragmatics of the Action Semantics Approach: Fault Tolerance As An Example

Padmanabhan Krishnan
Department of Computer Science
University of Canterbury

Abstract

In this paper we show how the action semantics framework can be used to describe a particular implementation of fault-tolerant systems. We also define a notion of simulation which can be the basis for relating a fault-tolerant implementation to an abstract (non-faulty, and non-fault tolerant) specification. The aim of the paper is to illustrate that good software engineering techniques can be applied to semantic descriptions. Issues such as modularity, extensibility of the semantic descriptions is illustrated.