Prof. Conrad Cunningham developed this course and first taught it during the spring semester of 1990. He subsequently taught the course during the spring 1991, fall 1992, spring 1994, spring 1995, fall 1996, and spring 1998 semesters. After several years of inactivity, he is reviving the course for spring 2006.
In 1990, the course focused on programming language semantics and verification. It used Raymond Gumb’s Programming Logics: An Introduction to Verification and Semantics (Wiley, 1989).
In 1991, the course began to evolve toward a course on program derivation. The 1991 course used David Gries’ The Science of Programming (Springer-Verlag, 1981). The 1992 version of the course continued the evolution and switched to Edward Cohen’s Programming in the 1990’s (Springer-Verlag, 1990). The 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1998 offerings of the course have followed this model.
In 1994, Cunningham developed the notes A Programmer’s Introduction to Predicate Logic to supplement Cohen’s book.
For the 2006 offering, David Gries’ book was used again because the Cohen book was out of print. This motivated Cunningham to develop the Notes on Program Semantics and Derivation as he taught the course.