Clifford "Cliff" B. Jones (born 1 June 1944) is a British

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

, specializing in research into

formal methods In computer science, formal methods are mathematics, mathematically rigorous techniques for the formal specification, specification, development, Program analysis, analysis, and formal verification, verification of software and computer hardware, ...

. He undertook a late

DPhil A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

at the Oxford University Computing Laboratory (now the Oxford University Department of Computer Science) under

Tony Hoare Sir Charles Antony Richard Hoare (; born 11 January 1934), also known as C. A. R. Hoare, is a British computer scientist who has made foundational contributions to programming languages, algorithms, operating systems, formal verification, and ...

, awarded in 1981. Jones' thesis proposed an extension to

Hoare logic Hoare logic (also known as Floyd–Hoare logic or Hoare rules) is a formal system with a set of logical rules for reasoning rigorously about the correctness of computer programs. It was proposed in 1969 by the British computer scientist and l ...

for handling concurrent programs, rely/guarantee. Prior to his DPhil, Jones worked for

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

, between the Hursley and

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

Laboratories. In Vienna, Jones worked with Peter Lucas, Dines Bjørner and others on the Vienna Development Method (VDM), originally as a method for specifying the formal semantics of programming languages, and subsequently for specifying and verifying programs. Cliff Jones was a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

at the

Victoria University of Manchester The Victoria University of Manchester, usually referred to as simply the University of Manchester, was a university in Manchester, England. It was founded in 1851 as Owens College. In 1880, the college joined the federal Victoria University. A ...

in the 1980s and early 1990s, worked in industry at Harlequin for a period, and is now a Professor of Computing Science at

Newcastle University Newcastle University (legally the University of Newcastle upon Tyne) is a public research university based in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It has overseas campuses in Singapore and Malaysia. The university is a red brick university and a mem ...

. He has been

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is held accoun ...

of the ''

Formal Aspects of Computing ''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 ...

'' journal. As well as formal methods, Jones also has interests in

interdisciplinary Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several fields such as sociology, anthropology, psychology, economi ...

aspects of computer science and the

history of computer science The history of computer science began long before the modern discipline of computer science, usually appearing in forms like mathematics or physics. Developments in previous centuries alluded to the discipline that we now know as computer science ...

.Cliff B. Jones: Publication List
,

Scientific Commons ScientificCommons was a project of the University of St. Gallen ''Institute for Media and Communications Management''. The major aim of the project was to develop the world’s largest archive of scientific knowledge with fulltexts freely accessi ...

Books

Jones has authored and edited many books, including: * * ''Understanding Programming Languages,'' Jones, C.B.

Springer, Cham Springer Nature or the Springer Nature Group is a German-British academic publishing company created by the May 2015 merger of Springer Science+Business Media and Holtzbrinck Publishing Group's Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillan, and Mac ...

. Print / online (2020). *''Reflections on the Work of C.A.R. Hoare'', Roscoe, A.W., Jones, C.B. and Wood, K. (eds.).

Springer Springer or springers may refer to: Publishers * Springer Science+Business Media, aka Springer International Publishing, a worldwide publishing group founded in 1842 in Germany formerly known as Springer-Verlag. ** Springer Nature, a multinationa ...

. (2010). * ''VDM: Une methode rigoureuse pour le development du logiciel'', Jones, C.B. Masson,

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. (1993). * ''MURAL: A Formal Development Support System'', Jones, C.B., Jones, K.D., Lindsay, P.A. and Moore, R. (eds.).

Springer-Verlag Springer Science+Business Media, commonly known as Springer, is a German multinational publishing company of books, e-books and peer-reviewed journals in science, humanities, technical and medical (STM) publishing. Originally founded in 1842 in ...

. (1991). * ''Systematic Software Development using VDM'' (2nd Edition), Jones, C.B.

Prentice Hall Prentice Hall was a major American publishing#Textbook_publishing, educational publisher. It published print and digital content for the 6–12 and higher-education market. It was an independent company throughout the bulk of the twentieth cen ...

International Series in Computer Science,

. , 1990 * ''Case Studies in Systematic Software Development'', Jones, C.B. and Shaw, R.C.F. (eds.). Prentice Hall International Series in Computer Science,

. (1989). * ''Essays in Computing Science'', Hoare, C.A.R. and Jones, C.B. Prentice Hall International Series in Computer Science,

. (1989). * ''Systematic Software Development using VDM'', Jones, C.B. Prentice Hall International Series in Computer Science,

. (1986). * ''Programming Languages and their Definition: Selected Papers of Hans Bekic (1936–1982)'', Jones, C.B. (editor).

Lecture Notes in Computer Science ''Lecture Notes in Computer Science'' is a series of computer science books published by Springer Science+Business Media since 1973. Overview The series contains proceedings, post-proceedings, monographs, and Festschrifts. In addition, tutorials ...

, Volume 177,

. (1984). * ''Formal Specification and Software Development'', Bjørner, D. and Jones, C.B. Prentice Hall International Series in Computer Science,

. (1982). * ''Software Development: A Rigorous Approach'', Jones, C.B. Prentice Hall International Series in Computer Science,

. (1980). * ''The Vienna Development Method: The Meta-Language'', Bjørner, D. and Jones, C.B. (editors).

, Volume 61,

. (1978).

References

External links

Home page
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Cliff 1944 births Living people Alumni of Wolfson College, Oxford Members of the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford IBM employees Academics of the Victoria University of Manchester Academics of Newcastle University Computer science writers British academic journal editors English computer scientists Formal methods people Fellows of the British Computer Society 1995 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Fellows of the Institution of Engineering and Technology Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering