Abstract
Teaching formal methods of software specification is often difficult. This is in part due to the lack of well defined methodologies for applying formal methods to large software system specifications. We have integrated formal specification with a more informal object-oriented modeling methodology. This allows the students to follow an established modeling approach and still generate formal specifications. We find that the students learn the formalism much easier with this approach than with our prior technique of teaching formal methods as a separate block of instruction. However, the lack of good computer-aided tools for some formal specification languages can prevent the students from directly seeing all of the benefits of using formalism. This paper describes our use of Z schemas to add formalism to the object-oriented modeling methodology of Rumbaugh, et.al. [RBP+91], describes the introductory software engineering course in which it is taught, and discusses our experience.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Grady Booch. Object Oriented Design with Applications. Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company Inc., Redwood City, CA, 1991.
Peter Coad and Edward Yourdan. Object-Oriented Analysis, 2nd Ed. Yourdan Press, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1991.
Alan M. Davis. Software Requirements, Analysis and Specification. Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1990.
David Garlan. Formal Methods for Software Engineers: Tradeoffs in Curriculum Design. In Proceedings of the Sixth SEI Conference on Software Engineering Education, pages 131–140, San Diego, CA, Oct 1992.
Ian Hayes. Specification Case Studies. Prentice Hall International (UK) Ltd, Hertfordshire, 1987.
D. C. Ince. An Introduction to Discrete Mathematics and Formal System Specification. Oxford University Press, New York, 1988.
Henry F. Korth and Abraham Silberschatz. Database System Concepts. McGraw-Hill, New York, 1986.
Michael R. Lowry and Robert D. McCartney. Automating Software Design. MIT and AAAI Press, Menlo Park, California, 1991.
Ben Potter, Jane Sinclair, and David Till. An Introduction to Formal Specification and Z. Prentice Hall, New York, 1991.
James Rumbaugh, M. Blaha, W. Premerlani, F. Eddy, and W. Lorensen. Object-Oriented Modeling and Design. Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1991.
Inc. Reasoning Systems. Refine User's Guide. 3260 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304, 1990.
Carol Sledge, editor. Proceedings of the Sixth Software Engineering Education Conference. Springer-Verlag, New York, New York, 1992.
Sally Shlaer and Stephen J. Mellor. Object-Oriented Systems Analysis. Yourdan Press, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1988.
J. M. Spivey. The Z Notation, A Reference Manual. Prentice Hall International (UK) Ltd, Hertfordshire, 1989.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1993 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Hartrum, T.C., Bailor, P.D. (1993). Teaching formal extensions of informal-based object-oriented analysis methodologies. In: DÃaz-Herrera, J.L. (eds) Software Engineering Education. CSEE 1994. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 750. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0017629
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0017629
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-57461-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-48191-1
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive