Informality in program specifications

  • Authors:

  • Robert Balzer;Neil Goldman;David Wile

  • Affiliations:

  • Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California, Marina Del Rey, California;Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California, Marina Del Rey, California;Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California, Marina Del Rey, California

  • Venue:
  • IJCAI'77 Proceedings of the 5th international joint conference on Artificial intelligence - Volume 1
  • Year:
  • 1977

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Abstract

This paper is concerned primarily with (1) the procedure by which process-oriented specifications are obtained from goal-oriented requirement specifications and (2) computer-based tools for their construction. It first determines some attributes of a suitable process-oriented specification language, then examines the reasons why specifications would still be difficult to write in such a language. The key to overcoming these difficulties seems to be the careful introduction of informality based on partial, rather than complete, descriptions and the use of a computer-based tool that uses context extensively to complete these descriptions during the process of constructing a well-formed specification. Some results obtained by a running prototype of such a computer-based tool on a few informal example specifications are presented and, finally, some of the techniques used by this phototype system are discussed.