On the systematic transformation of requirements to specifications

Li, Zhi; Hall, Jon and Rapanotti, Lucia (2014). On the systematic transformation of requirements to specifications. Requirements Engineering, 19(4) pp. 397–419.

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DOI (Digital Object Identifier) Link:	https://doi.org/10.1007/s00766-013-0173-8
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Abstract

Formal approaches to development are widely acknowledged to have difficulty in the validation of realworld requirements; in contrast, non-formal approaches find it difficult to identify the formal structures in requirements that are useful in a solution. That the problems that computing treats are embedded in the real world with solutions being an essentially formal machine means this dichotomy will always exist, with some new approach to the development needed which can draw a boundary between what is formalised and what can be left informal. In this paper, we show how the natural cause-and-effect structures that can be found in non-formal requirements descriptions can be used systematically to arrive at a software specification. The theoretical contribution of the work is the formalisation of Jackson’s idea of problem progression in his Problem Frames framework through the use of a graph grammar to capture problem models as graphs and their manipulation as transformations. The approach is illustrated through a substantial benchmark example—Swartout’s and Balzer’s package router. We also report on the results of an initial empirical evaluation of the approach based on a prototype problem progression tool we have constructed.

Item Type:

Journal Item

2013 Springer-Verlag London

ISSN:

1432-010X

Project Funding Details:

Funded Project Name	Project ID	Funding Body
Not Set	61262004	National Natural Science Foundation of China
Not Set	2012GXNSFCA053010	National Science Foundation of Guangxi Province
Guangxi Scientific Research and Technological Development Project	1347004-22	Not Set

Keywords:

requirements; specifications; problem frames; problem progression; graph transformation

Academic Unit/School:

Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) > Computing and Communications
Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)

Research Group:

Centre for Research in Computing (CRC)

Item ID:

38402

Depositing User:

Jon Hall

Date Deposited:

12 Sep 2013 10:58