Completeness and Consistency in Hierarchical State-Based Requirements
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering - Special issue: best papers of the 17th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE-17)
Cleanroom software engineering: technology and process
Cleanroom software engineering: technology and process
Toward Zero-Defect Programming
Toward Zero-Defect Programming
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The black box specification, developed by Harlan Mills, addresses the problem of software errors that result from failing to properly specify a response for an input scenario. Each black box models how an artifact responds to a particular input from its environment. This response depends on both the current input and the entire history of interactions it has had with the environment. We have observed that students find the black box concept useful and comprehensible, but tedious and error-prone as well. In order to enhance the utility and accessibility of this technique, we have developed a formal specification language and analysis tool for black box specifications. The analysis tool verifies whether a black box is a well-formed specification. To this end, it ensures that a response is specified for every possible combination of inputs from the environment, that every condition is logically disjoint with every other condition in the specification, and that every condition in the specification matches at least one potential input scenario. We have evaluated the utility and performance of the tool with two different groups of undergraduate students.