Formal Development Model

Formal Specification

• Formal software specifications are mathematical entities and may be analyzed using mathematical methods. Specification consistency and completeness can be proved mathematically.
• Formal specifications may be automatically processed. Software tools can be used to build programs from formal specifications.
• The development of a formal specification provides insights into and an understanding of the software requirements and the software design.

problems with formal development methods

• Many software engineers have not been trained in the techniques required to develop formal specifications.
• Customers may be unwilling to fund development activities that they cannot easily monitor.
• Software management is inherently conservative and is unwilling to adopt new techniques for which payoff is not obvious.
• Most of the effort in specification research has been concerned with the development of languages and their theoretical aspectsrather than tools and methods.

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