Towards a Precise UML-Based Development Method

Abstract

The talk will present an attempt, perhaps unorthodox, at bridging the gap between the use of formal techniques and the current software engineering practices. After years of full immersion in the development and use of formal techniques, we have been led to suggest a strategy, better marrying the rigour of formalities to the needs and, why not, the wisdom of current practices, that essentially aims at proposing methods where the formalities provide the foundational rigour, and perhaps may inspire new techniques, but are kept hidden from the user.

In a stream of papers we have outlined a development method – following that strategy – which is Model-Driven and adopts the UML notation. Here, we will outline in summary such method, briefly covering the phases of domain modelling, requirement specification and the Model-driven Design (or Platform Independent Design). Moreover, in this talk we will show how the proposed method may take advantage of the new and of the improved diagrams of UML 2.0.