The ManTa Project

ManTa Project - History and Future

A formal metodology for algebraic specification of ADTs (Abstract Data Types) was developed during 80's in the Universidad de los Andes. This work has derived in a formal language and a system to support the language.

The ManTa 3 language allows to specify ADTs and ensures that every specification written has a model (see the formal description).
The ManTa system is a tool that allows the user (1) to specify ADT by using the ManTa language and other semi-authomatic methods; (2) to prove properties of its ADTs via a theorem prover and (3) to generate implementations of its ADTs in popular programming languages i.e C and OCaml (see the ManTa 3.1 page).

Implementation History

This is the chronology of the development of the project, along with the implementators:

Year	Autor	Development
1980-1985	Prof. Rodrigo Cardoso (U. Andes)	Definition of first ManTa language and methodology
1985	Marcela Rodríguez (U. Andes)	Tool for ADT's edition
1987	Roberto Barón (U. Andes)	ADT development enviroment, theorem prover
1988	Ricardo Espinel (U. Andes)	LISP code generator
1989	Silvia Takahashi (U. Andes)	ManTa 1 enviroment
1990	Carolina Ruiz (U. Andes)	ManTa 2 enviroment . ADT Handling
1992	Cesar Muñoz (U. Andes)	Theorem prover and C code generator
1995	Hernán Aponte (U. Andes)	v3.0. New interface and interaction with GNU EMACS
1996	Alvaro Gonzales (U. Andes)	Partial implementation of a GUI in Tcl/Tk.
1997-2001	Vladimir Támara (U. Andes, U. Kaiserslautern)	v3.1. Stable and portable system that supports ManTa 3 language. OCaml Code Generator.
1998-1999	Vladimir Támara Prof. Klaus Madlener (U. Kaiserslautern) Prof. Rodrigo Cardoso	Specification of ManTa 3 language
2000	Gabriel Leyva (U. San Martin)	Partial implementation of a Java code generator
2001	Felipe Trujillo (U. Andes)	Lemmas in theorem prover.

ManTa's WEB Site

Since 1997 the ManTa's Web site is working. The people that have helped is shown below

Year	Person	Work Done
1997	Erick L. Rojas	Initial english translation
1997-2001	Vladimir Támara Patiño	Maintainer

Current State and Future Plans

To continue ManTa's development we've planned and followed a SDP (Software Development Process).

Version	Characteristics	State
3.1	Platform independent. First stable and usable version. Supports the ManTa 3 language.	Implementation (Beta version).
3.2	Re-engeneering to kernel 3.1. GUI	Implementation (Alpha version)
3.3	Bootstrap in OCaml
3.4	Bootstrap in Java

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ManTa Project
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