Capturing and Executing Behavioral Requirements: The Play-In/Play-Out Approach,
Dalia Harel, Rami Marelly · 2001
A powerful methodology for specifying scenario-based requirements of reactive systems is described, in which the behavior is \\played in " directly from the system's GUI or some abstract version thereof, and can then be \\played out". The approach is supported and illustrated by a tool, which we call the play-engine. As the requirements are played in, the play-engine automatically generates a formal version in the language of live sequence charts (LSCs). As they are played out, it causes the application to react according to the uni-versal (\\must") parts of the specication; the existential (\\may") parts can be monitored to check their successful completion. Play-in is a user-friendly high-level way of specify-ing behavior and play-out is a rather surprising way of working with a fully operational system directly from its requirements. The ideas appear to be relevant to many stages of system development, including requirements engineering, specication, testing, analysis and implementation.