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vienna[w85,jmc]		Modifying programs without reading them

For conference in honor of Heinz Zemanek

elephant, abstract actions
reference to past and future
programming in external language
as few as possible internal variables and data structures

What does natural language have that programming languages don't
have and need?  Very little, if any, of it is syntactic.

need another example besides reservation system

The abstract action program can serve as a specification, but
then the proof of correctness must identify events in the
operation of the program with the abstract actions of the
specification.

A program is correct if it carries out its commitments.  To
be correct it need not carry out its intentions.  Question:
is the abstract action of forming an intention useful?  Maybe
intentions should be carried out unless they are cancelled
by a further abstract action.  This suggests that within
an intention there can be commitments, i.e. that there is
some kind of block structure.