摘要:

In EPOS,*software configuration management is based on thechange-oriented versioningmodel. As part of a configured system specification, aversion descriptionis used to select the desired versions of different components that constitute the product. Furthermore, version descriptions are used to specify which versions are affected by a certain change. For large software systems comprising many variants, building a consistent configuration meeting specified requirements is not an easy task. In this paper, we propose a set of version description mechanisms and exemplify their use. An abstract description specifying the desired properties and functional requirements is expanded, usingvaliditiescharacterising properties of versions, preferences and defaults. We believe that the proposed mechanisms provide simpler, more intuitive and more compact descriptions of versions of large-scale software systems than conventional tools.

DOI:10.1049/sej.1991.0039

出版商:IEE    

年代:1991

数据来源: IET

摘要:

This paper addresses the problem of constructing test data sets from formal specifications. Starting from a notion of an ideal exhaustive test data set, which is derived from the notion of satisfaction of the formal specification, we show how to select by refinements apracticabletest set, i.e. computable, while not rejecting correct programs (unbiased) and accepting only correct programs (valid), when assuming certain hypotheses. The hypotheses play an important role; they formalise common test practices and they express the gap between the success of the test and correctness; the size of the test set depends on the strength of the hypotheses. The paper shows an application of this theory for algebraic specifications and presents the actual procedures used to mechanically product such test sets, using Horn clause logic. These procedures are embedded in an interactive system, which, given some general hypothesis schemes and an algebraic specification, produces a test set and the corresponding hypotheses.

DOI:10.1049/sej.1991.0040

出版商:IEE    

年代:1991

数据来源: IET

摘要:

The problems of successful software reuse have occupied the time of many researchers over the last ten years. This paper describes a field of research carried out at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, during the Alvey-funded Eclipse project [11. It describes the Component Description Language developed to support reuse by modelling the interfaces that exist between related software components. Support for the language is given in the form of a graphical representation, which it is believed will help speed up system development.

DOI:10.1049/sej.1991.0041

出版商:IEE    

年代:1991

数据来源: IET

摘要:

In software technology, the need for measurement is now well recognised, but it is proving difficult to devise measures that are unique, meaningful, objective and representative. This paper presents a method for characterising inherent properties of static Prolog code and assigning to them values by measurement. The principal aim here is to demonstrate that a model-based approach to measurement helps to ensure the quality of measures. We propose a model of the data entities in Prolog program texts, together with the model of the constructors that combine them into complete programs. The model-based measurement system presented characterises data entities by a six-tuple, and composes six-tuples to yield measures of complete programs or their parts. Model-based measurement ensures that the meaning of the measures is explicit. We also describe a tool that implements the measurement system.

DOI:10.1049/sej.1991.0042

出版商:IEE    

年代:1991

数据来源: IET

摘要:

We have investigated the problem ofimmigratingsoftware artifacts from one software development environment (SDE) to another, for the purpose of upgrading to new SDEs as technology improves, while continuing development or maintenance of existing software systems. We taxonomise the larger problem ofdata migration, to establish the scope of immigration. We classify SDEs in terms of the ease of immigrating software artifacts from the data repository of the source SDE, without knowledge of its internal representation. A framework is presented for constructing automatic immigration tools as utilities provided by destination SDEs. We describe a specific immigration tool, calledMarvelizer, that we have implemented as part of theMarvelSDE and discuss our experience using the tool.

DOI:10.1049/sej.1991.0043

出版商:IEE    

年代:1991

数据来源: IET

摘要:

Software group productivity can be dominated by many factors. A dominator is a single factor that causes productivity to decline ten-fold. The software productivity dominators discussed are design partition and communications. A model is developed to show the effect of intra-group communications on software group productivity, efficiency and group productivity speed up.

DOI:10.1049/sej.1991.0044

出版商:IEE    

年代:1991

数据来源: IET

摘要:

This paper describes and evaluates EXPOSE, an animation tool for process-oriented formal specifications of concurrent systems. EXPOSE takes as input the text of a formal specification and, from it, generates static views (interpretations) of the specification structure and dynamic views of the behaviour of the system specified. The views are constructed and explored using the hypermedia facilities of the Apple Macintosh HyperCard system. EXPOSE has been implemented experimentally for LOTOS, but most of the animation concepts and techniques described are relevant to other process-oriented languages, such as CCS and CSP.

DOI:10.1049/sej.1991.0045

出版商:IEE    

年代:1991

数据来源: IET

摘要:

Controlling changes is an important problem in software development. By considering the problem as containing or propagating the ripple effects of an initial change throughout the inter-relations of products, we can formalise mechanisms to deal with the overall effects of a change. If we restrict ourselves to formal specifications based on algebraic methodologies, we can obtain a precise picture of the changes in semantics as well as those in syntax. This line of investigation produces detailed requirements for, and even designs of, an environment that incorporates algebraic specification methodologies.

DOI:10.1049/sej.1991.0046

出版商:IEE    

年代:1991

数据来源: IET