Evolving Algebras 1993: Lipari Guide
This work addresses foundational issues in computer science by bridging theoretical computation and practical specification, though it appears incremental as an extension of Turing's thesis.
The paper tackled the gap between computation models and specification methods by proposing abstract state machines (ASMs) as versatile machines to simulate arbitrary algorithms step-for-step, asserting the ASM thesis as an improvement on Turing's thesis.
Computation models and specification methods seem to be worlds apart. The project on abstract state machines (in short ASMs, also known as evolving algebras) started as an attempt to bridge the gap by improving on Turing's thesis. We sought more versatile machines which would be able to step-for-step simulate arbitrary algorithms on their natural abstraction levels. The ASM thesis asserts that ASMs are such versatile machines. The guide provides the definitions of sequential, parallel and distributed ASMs.