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System Safety through Formal Domain-Specific Languages

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Safety-Critical Systems: The Convergence of High Tech and Human Factors

Abstract

Safety-critical software must evolve to reflect changing requirements. This paper argues that such evolution should not be carried out using source codes, but at higher level of abstraction and, therefore, reverse engineering is needed to acquire this more problem-oriented representation for existing systems.

An approach is described, based on formal transformations, to acquire an abstract representation in a domain-specific language. The design criteria for such a language are described, and then a simple language for process control is shown as an example.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Science Department, University of Durham, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, England

    Tim Bull & Keith Bennett

Authors
  1. Tim Bull
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  2. Keith Bennett
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Redmill Consultancy, 22 Onslow Gardens, London, N10 3JU, UK

    Felix Redmill

  2. Centre for Software Reliability, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK

    Tom Anderson

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© 1996 Springer-Verlag London Limited

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Bull, T., Bennett, K. (1996). System Safety through Formal Domain-Specific Languages. In: Redmill, F., Anderson, T. (eds) Safety-Critical Systems: The Convergence of High Tech and Human Factors. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-1480-2_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-1480-2_16

  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-76009-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-1480-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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