Games in the semantics of programming languages

an elementary introduction

Jan Jürjens

pp. 131-158

in: Benedikt Lowe, Florian Rudolph (eds), Foundations of the formal sciences I, Synthese 133, 2002.

Abstract

Mathematical models are an important tool in the development ofsoftware technology, including programming languages and algorithms.During the last few years, a new class of such models has beendeveloped based on the notion of a mathematical game that isespecially well-suited to address the interactions between thecomponents of a system. This paper gives an introduction to thesegame-semantical models of programming languages, concentrating onmotivating the basic intuitions and putting them into context.