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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Ian Hayes, Professor Michael Jackson, Emeritus Professor Cliff JonesORCiD
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Well understood methods exist for developing programs from given specifications. A formal method identifies proof obligations at each development step: if all such proof obligations are discharged, a precisely defined class of errors can be excluded from the final program. For a class of "closed" systems such methods offer a gold standard against which less formal approaches can be measured.For "open" systems -those which interact with the physical world- the task of obtaining the program specification can be as challenging as the task of deriving the program. And, when a system of this class must tolerate certain kinds of unreliability in the physical world, it is still more challenging to reach confidence that the specification obtained is adequate. We argue that widening the notion of software development to include specifying the behaviour of the relevant parts of the physical world gives a way to derive the specification of a control system and also to record precisely the assumptions being made about the world outside the computer.
Author(s): Hayes I, Jackson M, Jones C
Editor(s): Araki, K., Gnesi, S., Mandrioli, D.
Publication type: Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstract)
Publication status: Published
Conference Name: International Symposium of Formal Methods Europe (FME)
Year of Conference: 2003
Pages: 154-169
ISSN: 0302-9743 (print) 1611-3349 (online)
Publisher: Springer
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/b13229
DOI: 10.1007/b13229
Notes: (A development of this paper has now been submitted (different title, different order of authors) to Acta Informatica - I obviously hope it will replace this item pre-RAE.) The technique described here is a major outcome of the 6-year DIRC project. It's importance is that it shows how to determine the specification of the technical part of a larger (possibly socio-technical) system. The technicalities required that we brought together work from all three authors.
Library holdings: Search Newcastle University Library for this item
Series Title: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
ISBN: 9783540408284
