Ensuring Robustness and Reliability of Object Oriented Software Using MASCOT 3

Abstract

This paper presents the use of MASCOT 3 as a design tool for the production of robust and reliable Object Oriented software.

Object-Oriented design for software systems is a fast growing area of research and development, although currently there is no methodology to ensure the robustness and reliability of the software produced.

The MASCOT 3 design methodology, designed for use in the development of real-time systems by Ken Jackson et al., may prove to be an ideal way of developing OO software.

The paper describes the use of MASCOT 3 for the design of an Object-Oriented software system and discusses the resulting strengths of the design provided by the MASCOT 3 methodology.

MASCOT 3 provides: a formalism, which is machine and language independent, for the expression of the system in terms of system/sub-system network diagrams and text; a methodology for the design, implementation, testing, documentation and maintenance of the software; and a kernel which provides run-time executive control for synchronisation and scheduling of real-time processing, and which can be utilised to control the parallel processing of operations on Objects.

Further, the formalism supports the design of Objects using MASCOT 3’ s basic design entities; it provides a natural way of expressing classes and hierarchical relationships between objects; the MASCOT 3 design template automatically aids the reuse of software objects; MASCOT 3’s Access Interface can be used to represent and ensure legal messages between objects; and the formalism supports the information hiding and abstract data typing associated with OO design.