Abstract

This thesis presents an overall picture of the tool to be developed for a generating interpreters for definitive notations that support data abstraction. The first chapter gives an introductory approach to the definitive paradigm by examining the potential of existing programming methodologies for interaction. The second chapter illustrates the definitive programming paradigm through some implemented systems. The third chapter concentrates on the issue of data abstraction in Computer Science, the need for formal models to specify it, and the role definitive programming has played so far in providing suitable tools for data abstraction. The fourth chapter covers the major ingredients of the interpreter such as the abstraction of definitive variables, the assignment of values to declared variables using formulae incorporating a wide range of operators, and the extraction of either the mode, or the value information of any definitive variable. The fifth chapter discusses the implementation of the present tool by translating definitive statements into some intermediate code where relationships between variables can be regularly maintained, and updated by a primitive definitive programming implementation tool. The sixth chapter reviews the work that has been done, and includes proposals for future research.