A practice-oriented course on the principles of computation, programming, and system design and analysis

We propose a simple foundation for a practice-oriented undergraduate course that links seamlessly computation theory to principles and methods for high-level computer-based system development and analysis. Starting from the fundamental notion of virtual machine computations, which is phrased for both synchronous and asynchronous systems in terms of Abstract State Machines, the course covers in a uniform way the basics of algorithms (sequential and distributed computations) and formal languages (grammars and automata) as well as the computational content of the major programming paradigms and high-level system design principles. The course constitutes a basis for advanced courses on algorithms and their complexity as well as on rigorous methods for requirements capture and for practical hardware/software design and analysis.