DeStijl

Design and Specification Through Interfacing and Joining Languages

This project is about formal wide-spectrum specification and design languages. These languages are the core of rigorous software development based on formal methods. The experiences with formal design and specification languages add to the lessons learnt from the situation in programming languages: the need for modifications, combinations and extensions of existing formal languages and for new ones --be they executable or not-- will continue to exist. This asks for a "theory of language engineering" that can serve as the scientific base for a systematic methodology of formal language design.

The objectives of the project are:

1. to generate shared insights and clear scientific results in the framework of formal language engineering, that will create novel opportunities for the exploitation of rigorous wide-spectrum specification and design languages;
2. to remove technical obstacles that currently prevent re-use and exploitation of results obtained for one language in the context of another language;
3. to gain a better understanding of the fundamental difficulties inherent to the processes of specification and design of complex systems - in particular by undertaking an effort to formalize design decisions;
4. to establish an effective interaction between and further training of researchers involved in the application and development of the main wide-spectrum specification and design languages in Europe.

Project partners: Research Institute for Mathematics and Computing Science , University of Groningen; Department of Information Technology, Technical University Denmark, Lyngby; Philips Research Laboratories, Eindhoven; Department of Computer Science , Trinity College, Univerisity of Dublin (TCD); Department of Philosophy, Utrecht University.

Contact persons: Dr. Maria Victoria Cengarle, Dr. Bernhard Reus.

More information about this project on the DeStijl page .