Transformational design and implementation of a new efficient solution to the ready simulation problem

A transformational methodology is described for simultaneously designing algorithms and developing programs. The methodology makes use of three transformational tools — dominated convergence, finite differencing, and real-time simulation of a set machine on a RAM. We ilustrate the methodology to design a new O(mn + n2)-time algorithm for deciding when n-state, m-transition processes are ready similar, which is a substantial improvement on the ⊖(mn6) algorithm presented in Bloom (1989). The methodology is also used to derive a program whose performance, we believe, is competitive with the most efficient hand-crafted implementation of our algorithm. Ready simulation is the finest fully abstract notion of process equivalence in the CCS setting.