Handbook

This subject demonstrates how software development can be viewed as a kind of engineering - an activity of building useful things to serve recognisable purposes. The subject introduces students to the understanding of software requirements, techniques of requirement elicitation and analysis, and formal methods for software specification. The role of formal methods in the software development process is explained and investigated. The subject uses the Z notation as an example of a formal specification technique. Case studies are used as a basis for a study of the application of requirement processes and formal specification techniques. Topics will include: Introduction to the procedure of software requirement engineering, formal approaches to design and specification, review of mathematical foundation for formal methods, use of assertions and proof, analysis and verification of specification and design, disciplined approaches to design change, Z notation and other Morden methods for formal specification.