Objectives

This section is meant both as a conclusion with respect to the previous and present chapter and as a forward reference to part III. It states that design must allow for reasoning about a specification and the code that realizes a specification. Also, it must indicate how runtime consistency may be monitored by including appropriate conditions and invariance checks.

Points to emphasize

Hints

You may include additional material on formal methods.

Question

  1. Characterize the elements that form part of a formal specification.

Comments

It is my experience that students are quite interested in your opinion on software engineering issues in general, and the question of whether a formal approach is useful in particular. Don't hesitate to express your opinion!