Introducing Proofs ofaProgram's Termination inanUndergraduate Software Engineering Course

The author madethefirst attempt tointroduce proofs ofprogramcorrectness inanundergraduate software engineering course inFall2005attheauthor's university. The author alsonoticed thatexisting textbooks might coverHoare's axiomsforproving partial correctness ofprogramwithout touching proofs ofprogramterminations. Inthis paper, weare presenting amethodforproving aprogram's termination. After Hoare's axioms areapplied toaprogram, themethodcanbe applied totheprogram toshowwhether theprogram terminates successfully withcorrect outputs. Different techniques for proving programterminations intermsofdifferent loop structures arealso discussed. Withtheintroduction ofproofs of programterminations tostudents ina software engineering course, thestudents canhaveafull picture ofproofs ofprogram correctness. Lastly, we present ourexperience ofteaching proofs ofprogramcorrectness. I.INTRODUCTION