Short answer: try starting with TLA+. I'm working on this. My colleague, who is mentoring me, is the one who's finishing his PhD in software engineering. It's

Short answer: try starting with TLA+. I'm working on this. My colleague, who is mentoring me, is the one who's finishing his PhD in software engineering. It's his guidance that has helped me so I don't have a good answer for how to teach yourself yet. We're working on a project to create specifications for Openstack and are learning a lot by working together on how formal specifications could be taught to hackers and developers with no formal mathematics training, etc. If you want a brief introduction to the ideas try some of Leslie Lamports talks on TLA+: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCRqE59VXT0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCRqE59VXT0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4Yp3j_jk8Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4Yp3j_jk8Q