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An Essence of Domain Engineering

A Basis for Trustworthy Aeronautics and Space Software

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NASA Formal Methods (NFM 2022)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 13260))

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Abstract

Before software can be designed one must have a reasonable grasp of its requirements. Before requirements can be prescribed one must have a reasonable grasp of the domain in which the software is to serve. So we must study, analyse and describe the application domain. We shall argue that domain science & engineering is a necessary prerequisite for requirements engineering, and hence software design. We survey elements of domain science & engineering – and exemplify some elements of domain descriptions. We finally speculate on the relevance of domain engineering in the context of and aeronautics and space.

Invited paper for the The 14th NASA Formal Methods Symposium, https://nfm2022.caltech.edu, May 24–27, 2022, Pasadena, California, USA.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We take informatics to be an amalgam of mostly mathematical nature: computer & computing science and mathematics. Another such amalgam is IT which we consider as mostly of technological nature: electronics, plasma and quantum physics, etc. Informatics, to us, is a universe of intellectual quality: meeting customers expectations, correct wrt. specifications, etc. IT is then a universe of material quantity: smaller, bigger, faster, less costly, etc. The products of informatics [must] satisfy laws of mathematics, in particular of mathematical logic. The products of IT [must] satisfy the laws of physics.

  2. 2.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_computer_science.

  3. 3.

    Triptych: a picture (such as an altarpiece) or carving in three panels side by side, or something composed or presented in three parts or sections especially, like a trilogy.

  4. 4.

    Raise: Rigorous approach to industrial software engineering.

  5. 5.

    By ‘rationally describable’ we mean that the specification, in this case the description, must allow for formal, i.e., logical reasoning.

  6. 6.

    Ontology is the study of concepts such as existence, being, becoming, and reality.

  7. 7.

    Epistemology is the study of properties, origin and limits for human knowledge.

  8. 8.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Euclidean_geometry.

  9. 9.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_and_philosophical_views_of_Albert_-Einstein#Philosophical_beliefs.

  10. 10.

    https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/.

  11. 11.

    We could omit the concept of structure altogether and just allow compounds that do not have internal qualities.

  12. 12.

    By ‘representative Cartesian of pairs’ we mean that there is a pair of any part (of the set) and its type for every possible part type in the Cartesian.

  13. 13.

    Achille Varzi: Mereology, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mereology/ 2009 and [18].

  14. 14.

    – by the transcendent part behaviour.

  15. 15.

    We shall forego explaining the state concept \(\varXi \).

  16. 16.

    RSL does not have channel arrays. So this is a deviation from RSL.

  17. 17.

    Parts – being the bases for behaviours – persist, endure.

  18. 18.

    where pattern – typically is a “grouping expression” over [free] identifiers.

  19. 19.

    ch[{ui,uj}] ? is an expression.

  20. 20.

    The type of attribute A names (a single element type) is \(\eta \) A, and the value is “ A ”. The type of all attribute names is \(\eta \mathbb {A}\).

  21. 21.

    The \(\uplus \) operator merges \(\texttt {RSL}^+\textsf {Text}\)s.

  22. 22.

    A link is a street segment delineated by street intersections.

  23. 23.

    A hub is a street intersection of one or more links.

  24. 24.

    – so we have decided !.

  25. 25.

    – zero expresses that the link is [currently] closed for traffic, one if it is [currently] a one way link, in one or the other direction as indicated by the connecting hub identifiers, or two if it is [currently] a two way link.

  26. 26.

    – each pair, \((li_j,li_k)\) expressing that automobiles may [currently] enter the hub from the links identified by \(li_j\) and leave the hub to the links identified by \(li_k\).

  27. 27.

    – expressing the fraction along the designated link between the two designated hubs. The type constructor : : is “borrowed” from VDM [22].

  28. 28.

    – expressing that the automobile at hub hi is on its way between links designated by li\('\) and li\(''\).

  29. 29.

    We shall define that attribute in items 53c on the facing page.

  30. 30.

    We refer to:

    .

  31. 31.

    We shall use the ampersand, &, instead of ‘and’, to emphasize that we speak of one, consolidated topic, not two !.

  32. 32.

    The following text is adapted from various NASA Web pages found under: https://www.nasa.gov.

  33. 33.

    ICAO (UN), Roscosmos (Russia), CNSA (China), ISRO (India), JAXA (Japan), AEB (Brazil), CSA (Canada), ASA (Australia) and others.

  34. 34.

    It appears to have become fashionable to include the idea of ‘essence’ in the title of methods or books:

    .

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Acknowledgments

The front matter preface of [11] ends with an extensive list of acknowledgments. For this paper I repeat acknowledging three persons: Kai Sørlander from whose philosophical works and from our personal interaction I have benefited; my editor at Springer, Ronan Nugent, whose steadfast and tireless work also lies behind [11]; and Klaus Havelund for being a great discussion partner over now many years. I also thank the NASA Formal Methods Symposium for the invitation which has afforded me the possibility to correct, clarify and simplify a number of issues wrt. RSL, \(\texttt {RSL}^+\textsf {Text}\), and domain analysis and description methodology: its principles, techniques and tools.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. DTU Compute, Technical University of Denmark, 2800, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark

    Dines Bjørner

  2. Technical University of Denmark, Fredsvej 11, 2840, Holte, Denmark

    Dines Bjørner

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  1. Dines Bjørner
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Correspondence to Dines Bjørner .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Jyotirmoy V. Deshmukh

  2. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Klaus Havelund

  3. National Institute of Aerospace, Hampton, VA, USA

    Ivan Perez

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Bjørner, D. (2022). An Essence of Domain Engineering. In: Deshmukh, J.V., Havelund, K., Perez, I. (eds) NASA Formal Methods. NFM 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13260. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06773-0_2

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