In software engineering there is a growing need for formalization as a basis for developing powerful computer assisted methods. This volume contains seven extensive lectures prepared for a series of IFIP seminars on the Formal Description of Programming Concepts. The authors are experts in their fields and have contributed substantially to the state of the art in numerous publications. The lectures cover a wide range in the theoretical foundations of programming and give an up-to-date account of the semantic models and the related tools which have been developed in order to allow a rigorous discussion of the problems met in the construction of correct programs. In particular, methods for the specification and transformation of programs are considered in detail. One lecture is devoted to the formalization of concurrency and distributed systems and reflects their great importance in programming. Further topics are the verification of programs and the use of sophisticated type systems in programming. This compendium on the theoretical foundations of programming is also suitable as a textbook for special seminars on different aspects of this broad subject.