Evaluating software specifications by comparison
Cyrille Dongmo, John Andrew van der Poll · 2011
It is a common practice in software development and other engineering domains to design more than one solution for a complex problem and consider only the most appropriate one. Similar practice is observed when procuring a new software product. The literature recommends this practice and intensively reveals a number of practical cases, yet is largely silent on how to make such a selection. In requirements engineering, an important issue is to provide a basis for judging and selecting one specification above others. This paper proposes through a case study, an approach to evaluate and compare two Object-Z specifications of the same set of requirements and hence, provides a means to select the most appropriate one. The approach recommends identifying properties expected from a satisfactory specification, uses existing validation techniques to evaluate proposed specifications and defines guidelines for comparison to facilitate the choice.