Preface [International Conference on Rigorous State-Based Methods (ABZ 2023)]

Abstract

[Excerpt] The International Conference on Rigorous State-Based Methods (ABZ 2023) was an international forum for the cross-fertilization of related state-based and machine-based formal methods, mainly Abstract StateMachines (ASM), Alloy, B, TLA +, VDM and Z. Rigorous state-based methods share common conceptual foundations and are widely used in both academia and industry for the design and analysis of hardware and software systems. The acronym ABZ was invented at the first conference, held in London in 2008, where the ASM, B and Z conference series merged into a single event. The second ABZ 2010 conference was held in Orford (Canada), where the Alloy community joined the event; ABZ 2012 was held in Pisa (Italy), which saw the inclusion of the VDM community (but not in the title); ABZ 2014 was held in Toulouse (France), which brought the inclusion of the TLA + community into the ABZ conference series. Lastly, the ABZ 2016 conference was held in Linz, Austria and ABZ 2018 in Southampton, UK. In 2018 the steering committee decided to retain the (well-known) acronym ABZ and add the subtitle ‘International Conference on Rigorous State-Based Methods’ to make more explicit the intention to include all state-based formal methods. Two successive ABZ events have been organized in Ulm (Germany) and these were the two first virtual ABZ events. [...]