A hidden agenda

This paper publicly reveals, motivates, and surveys the results of an ambit ious hidden agenda for applying algebra to software engineering. The paper reviews selected literature, introduces a new perspective on nondeterminism , and features powerful hidden coinduction techniques for proving behaviora l properties of concurrent systems, especially refinements; some proofs are given using OBJ3. We also discuss where modularization, bisimulation, tran sition systems and combinations of the object, logic, constraint and functi onal paradigms fit into our hidden agenda. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. A ll rights reserved.