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Combining object-oriented paradigm and controlled natural language for requirements specification

Published: 17 October 2021 Publication History

Abstract

Natural language is the dominant form of writing software requirements. Its essential ambiguity causes inconsistency of requirements, which leads to scope creep. On the other hand, formal requirements specification notations such as Z, Petri Nets, SysML, and others are difficult to understand by non-technical project stakeholders. They often become a barrier between developers and requirements providers. The article presents a controlled natural language that looks like English but is a strongly typed object-oriented language compiled to UML/XMI. Thus, it is easily understood, at the same time, by non-technical people, programmers, and computers. Moreover, it is formally verifiable and testable. It was designed, developed, and tested in three commercial software projects in order to validate the assumption that object-oriented design can be applied to requirements engineering at the level of specifications writing. The article outlines key features of the language and summarizes the experience obtained during its practical application.

Supplementary Material

Auxiliary Presentation Video (splashws21bcncmain-p41-p-video.mp4)
Video presentation of REQUS, a controlled natural language for requirements specifications.

References

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2005. ASD Simplified Technical English. International specification for the preparation of maintenance documentation in a controlled language. Simplified Technical English Maintenance Group (STEMG).
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Yegor Bugayenko. 2016. Elegant Objects. 1, Amazon.
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Betty H.C. Chen. 2009. Current and Future Research Directions in Requirements Engineering. In Design Requirements Engineering: A Ten-Year Perspective In Design Requirements Engineering: A Ten-Year Perspective. 14, 11–43.
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Alistair Cockburn. 2001. Writing Effective Use Cases. Addison-Wesley.
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IEEE. 1998. Recommended Practice for Software Requirements Specifications. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
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OMG. 2011. MOF 2.0/XMI Mapping, Version 2.4.1. Object Management Group.
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David West. 2004. Object Thinking. Microsoft Press.
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Cited By

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  • (2024)Usability Assessment of the Use-Case Model Textual Specification LanguageAdvances in Computational Collective Intelligence10.1007/978-3-031-70259-4_29(378-390)Online publication date: 9-Sep-2024
  • (2022)REX: General-Purpose CNL with Code Generation SupportApplied Sciences10.3390/app1215770012:15(7700)Online publication date: 30-Jul-2022

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  1. Combining object-oriented paradigm and controlled natural language for requirements specification

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    BCNC 2021: Proceedings of the 1st ACM SIGPLAN International Workshop on Beyond Code: No Code
    October 2021
    35 pages
    ISBN:9781450391252
    DOI:10.1145/3486949
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Publication History

    Published: 17 October 2021

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    Author Tags

    1. Natural Language Processing
    2. Requirements

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    October 17, 2021
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    View all
    • (2024)Usability Assessment of the Use-Case Model Textual Specification LanguageAdvances in Computational Collective Intelligence10.1007/978-3-031-70259-4_29(378-390)Online publication date: 9-Sep-2024
    • (2022)REX: General-Purpose CNL with Code Generation SupportApplied Sciences10.3390/app1215770012:15(7700)Online publication date: 30-Jul-2022

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