"It is, therefore, possible to extend a partially specified interpretation to a complete interpretation, without loss of verifiability, [...] This fact offers the possibility of automatic verification of programs, the programmer merely tagging entrances and one edge in each innermost loop."
Robert W. Floyd was an American computer scientist. His contributions include the design of the Floyd–Warshall algorithm, which efficiently finds all shortest paths in a graph and his work on parsing; Floyd's cycle-finding algorithm for detecting cycles in a sequence was attributed to him as well. In one isolated paper he introduced the important concept of error diffusion for rendering images, al
"The establishment of formal standards for proofs about programs [...] and the proposal that the semantics of a programming language may be defined independently of all processors for that language, by establishing standards of rigor for proofs about programs in the language, appears to be novel."
Robert W. Floyd"A semantic definition of a particular set of command types, then, is a rule for constructing, for any command of one of these types, a verification condition on the antecedents and consequents."
Robert W. Floyd"If the advancement of the general art of programming requires the continuing invention and elaboration of paradigms, advancement of the art of the individual programmer requires that he expand his repertory of paradigms."
Robert W. Floyd"If there is ever a science of programming language design, it will probably consist largely of matching languages to the design methods they support."
Robert W. Floyd"To the designer of programming languages, I say: unless you can support the paradigms I use when I program, or at least support my extending your language into one that does support my programming methods, I dont need your shiny new languages. [...] To persuade me of the merit of your language, you must show me how to construct programs in it."
Robert W. Floyd