Landmarks of the period

If the 1970s were the years of foundations, the following decade was the one in which my concerns began to acquire a structure of their own. Research, teaching, and technical writing were no longer separate directions: each nourished the others.

• The transition from languages and compilers to the broader problem of the systematic design of software.
• The formulation of the concepts of abstract machine and interform, and the development of the INTERFORM project.
• The publication of books and courses that synthesized the experience accumulated over the years.
• The growing proximity between software engineering and artificial intelligence.
• An intense professional activity carried out under the increasing pressure of the final communist decade.
• The decision to leave the country and the end of the Romanian period of my life.

The maturation of ideas about software

The experiences of the 1970s had convinced me that the software problem could not be reduced to writing correct programs. Behind the final product lay a design process made up of choices, transformations, revisions, and successive descriptions. It was precisely this process that became the main subject of my research.

I began to view design as a controlled passage between levels of description. The concept of interform designated these intermediate states of the software product, while the idea of the abstract machine provided a framework for understanding each level. The aim was not to eliminate the designer's creativity, but to support it through models, methods, and tools.

These ideas led to the INTERFORM project, an attempt to transform a conception of program development into a concrete system for assisting design. In retrospect, INTERFORM brought together my concerns with formalism, refinement, transformation, and the integration of software tools.

The full thread of this evolution is presented in My path in research – The 1980s .

Teaching, books, and the formation of a school

During these years, research was directly reflected in my teaching activity. Courses on programming, languages, and compilers were not intended merely to convey techniques, but to cultivate a discipline of thought. I tried to show students that a program should be built methodically, beginning with the problem and the model, rather than improvised directly in code.

In 1984, two books appeared that expressed two important directions of my work: Systematic Programming in Pascal and Fortran and, together with C. Giumale, Artificial Intelligence. The first synthesized my teaching experience and my interest in the rigorous construction of programs; the second marked an opening toward knowledge representation and intelligent problem solving.

Activity within the department, however, meant more than courses and publications. Around projects, laboratories, and student work, a professional community was taking shape. Even in a materially modest environment, we tried to remain connected to the important ideas of the field and to build an academic culture of computing.

The opening toward artificial intelligence

My interest in artificial intelligence did not represent a departure from software engineering. For me, the two fields met in the problem of representation: how can we describe an object, a process, or a state of knowledge in such a way that a system can operate upon it?

In software engineering, I was concerned with intermediate representations and the transformations leading from requirements to programs. In artificial intelligence, I was attracted by the possibility of representing knowledge, rules, and problem-solving strategies. Both directions posed the same fundamental question: how much of an intellectual activity can be made explicit, and how much remains dependent on human experience and judgment?

This proximity between the two fields would reappear much later, in new forms, in my research on intelligent systems, agents, and digital health.

Institutional and political constraints

The professional maturation of those years cannot be separated from the framework in which it occurred. Access to computers, journals, books, and international contacts was limited. Many initiatives depended on approvals, institutional relationships, and circumstances unrelated to their scientific value.

As the decade advanced, the country's isolation became increasingly oppressive. Everyday life was dominated by shortages, while political control penetrated even the university environment. In such a context, research required not only competence but also patience, adaptability, and sometimes discreet forms of resistance.

Some episodes of this relationship with institutions and power are developed separately in A Client of the Securitate and My Portrait for Ion Iliescu.

The threshold of 1989

Toward the end of the decade, my professional achievements contrasted ever more sharply with the feeling that the world in which I lived was closing in. I had ideas, experience, books, and projects, yet the possibilities for further development were becoming increasingly narrow. My dissatisfaction did not arise from a single episode, but from the gradual accumulation of professional, political, and everyday restrictions.

In August 1989, I left Romania. My departure did not erase what I had built during the two decades spent at the university, but it broke the continuity of a life and opened a period in which my entire professional experience had to be demonstrated once again, in another language and in another society.

The continuation can be found in Leaving the country and in the index Emigration and resettlement in Italy.

Pages related to this decade

• My path in research – The 1980s – the narrative thread of my research, from interform to INTERFORM and artificial intelligence.
• Order in chaos (1980–1989) – the thematic organization of my software-engineering articles and ideas.
• INTERFORM – A CAD System for Program Development – the 1987 article on the INTERFORM system.
• A Client of the Securitate – an episode concerning political and institutional control.
• My Portrait for Ion Iliescu – meetings and political contexts that crossed this period.