Abstract
I discuss formal description techniques (FDTs) as they are applied in practice in software and system engineering. Their quality can be measured by their formality, descriptiveness and technical usefulness. I discuss shortcomings in the scientific and semantic foundations of FDTs. I formulate requirements for FDTs. I demonstrate how a family of complementary description techniques can be developed on the basis of a mathematical system model that provides a scientific methodological foundation for the modular specification and development of systems. This demonstrates a proceeding in the design of FDTs that helps to make them formal, descriptive and technically useful.
This work was partially sponsored by the Sonderforschungsbereich 342 “Werkzeuge und Methoden für die Nutzung paralleler Rechnerarchitekturen”, the BMBF-project KorSys and the industrial research project SysLab sponsored by Siemens Nixdorf and by the DFG under the Leibniz program
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Broy, M. (1996). Formal description techniques - how formal and descriptive are they?. In: Gotzhein, R., Bredereke, J. (eds) Formal Description Techniques IX. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-35079-0_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-35079-0_6
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