proving program equivalence I understand that the general problem of program equivalence is undecidable, but I'm wondering what approaches exist to tackle the problem? I am familiar with Hoare-style verification, but are there any other frameworks for proving program equivalence?
One general approach to the problem is to prove program equivalence by showing the programs have the same semantics. Hoare-style verification, as you say, is one option categorized as axiomatic semantics. Have a look at this article which describes most of the semantic approaches out there, including denotational semantics and operational semantics.