Formal Aspects of Computing

*Formal Aspects of Computing*
Discipline	Computer science, formal methods
Language	English
Edited by	Jim Woodcock, Cliff Jones
Publication details
History	1989–present
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery
Frequency	Quarterly
Impact factor	1.4 (2023)
Standard abbreviations;
ISO 4	Form. Asp. Comput.
Indexing;
ISSN	0934-5043 (print); 1433-299X (web);
OCLC no.	42939863
Links
	Journal homepage;

Formal Aspects of Computing (FAC) is a peer-reviewed Gold Open Access journal published by Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and BCS (the British Computer Society, the Chartered Institute for IT). The journal is closely associated with Formal Methods Europe.

Origins

A comment from Christopher Strachey inspired the journal:

"Much of the practical work done in computing, both in software and hardware design, could be better because the people who do it need to understand the fundamental design principles of their work clearly. Most abstract mathematical and theoretical work is sterile because it has no point of contact with real computing."

Strachey called for an end to the artificial and injurious separation of practical and theoretical work in programming.

History

Formal Aspects of Computing was founded in 1989 by the BCS in an initiative led by John Cooke, Dan Simpson, and Cliff Jones, all of whom were members of the BCS Formal Aspects of Computing specialist group. Cliff Jones was the founding editor, and Springer was the initial publisher. Cliff Jones was editor-in-chief from 1989 to 2007. Jim Woodcock is the current EIC, having taken over in 2007.

Research contributions

Formal Aspects of Computing publishes contributions at the junction of theory and practice. The principal aim of FAC is to promote the growth of computing science, show its relation to practice, and stimulate applications of appropriate formalisms to practical problems. One significant challenge is to show how a range of formal models can be related to each other. In particular, the scope of Formal Aspects of Computing includes,

Well-founded notations for the description and specification of systems.
Methods for verifiable system design.
Elucidation of fundamental computational concepts and models.
Approaches to fault-tolerant design.
Verification tools and theorem proving.
State-exploration tools and model checking.
Formal semantics for widely used notations and methods.
Formal approaches to requirements analysis.

Jim Woodcock is the current editor-in-chief. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2023 impact factor of 1.4.

Other contributions

The journal welcomes contributions in addition to research papers. These include the following.

Special issues FAC welcomes proposals for special issues from leading members of the formal methods community. Appropriate proposals include:
- Conferences and workshops Revised collections of papers.
- Thematic topics include collections of papers dedicated to hot topics in formal methods, usually with an open call for papers.
State-of-the-art reports In-depth, scholarly analyses of essential research areas.
History of ideas The history of ideas traces the origin and development of formal methods and their tools. It examines various mechanisations, their relation, the intellectual resources used, and the further ideas inspired by the work.
Book reviews This includes critical reviews of formal methods, research monographs and teaching textbooks.
Obituaries Obituaries usually describe and celebrate the lives of the most successful researchers, in our case, through seminal contributions to formal methods. We also encourage celebrating people who have contributed to our subject in more ordinary ways, such as through innovative teaching, writing textbooks, developing software tools, pursuing outreach and continuing education, and applying our tools and techniques in industry.