Abstract
Pictures have been used in informal specification methods for years, clarifying textual descriptions. This paper deals with integration of pictorial representations into formal specification techniques. The usage of pictures does not necessarily imply giving up formality, and this is illustrated with the pictorial language POLAR. This pictorial language shows the modular structure of possibly complex software systems. In large industrial applications of formal specification methods the manageability of complexity is a key factor and here the automatic generation of compact, pictorial representations can be employed directly. Although the approach has been carried out for the formal specification language COLD-K, it does not depend on a particular specification language and the ideas behind it can be used for other languages as well. The pictorial language POLAR as discussed in this paper, were found to be very useful in several large-scale case studies.
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© 1991 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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van den Bos, R.D., Feijs, L.M.G., van Ommering, R.C. (1991). POLAR a picture-oriented language for abstract representations. In: Bergstra, J.A., Feijs, L.M.G. (eds) Algebraic Methods II: Theory, Tools and Applications. Algebraic Methods 1989. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 490. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-53912-3_25
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-53912-3_25
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