Gene A. Place

Date of Award

12-1990

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Computer Science

Department

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

First Advisor

Paul Bailor, PhD

Abstract

The program tranformations lifecycle model, proposed by Balzer in 1984, may hold the key to dramatic leap in software engineer productivity necessitated by the tremendous growth in the world's demand for software. This leap in productivity is made possible by the program transformation lifecycle's reliance on formal specifications rather than programs as the primary vehicle for the creation and maintenance of software systems. Because formal specifications are concerned only with system behaviors and not implementation details, formal specifications tend to present critical system characteristics much more concisely than programs. The major disadvantage of using formal specifications in a software development process, however, is that, because of their highly mathematical nature, formal specifications tend to be very difficult to create, understand, and maintain for the average software engineer or programmer. This thesis develops a graphical formal specification language based on the Refine wide spectrum language using a graph based iconic representation to present formal specifications in a format that is much easier to create and manipulate than the equivalent textual formal specifications.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-GCS-ENG-90D-10

DTIC Accession Number

ADA230458

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