Methods of Software Development

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Methods of Software Development

• Karl Lieberherr
• Spring 2007

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A list of possibilities(from the web)

• method a way of doing something, especially in a
  systematic way.
• Statistical methods in Software Engineering
  (reliability and risk) by Singpurwalla and Wilson
• Software development processes each process as a
  method
• Formal methods using mathematical approaches to
  solving software problems (from requirement to
  implementation level)

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A list of possibilities (cont.)(from the web)

• method a way of doing something, especially in a
  systematic way.
• object-oriented methods of software development
• generic programming
• programming by contracts
• programming with meta classes
• design patterns
• aspect-oriented methods of software development
• joinpoints, pointcuts, advice

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What is the goal of methods for software
development?

• modular designs, good separation of concerns
• easy to understand and modify
• efficient implementation
• etc.

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Methods of software developmentbased on
relations and constraints

• Examples
• design analysis state machine S over structured
  states, violating the expected property P. S and
  !P
• code analysis check a procedure against its
  declarative spec.
• test case generation from data invariants
• component assembly and installation
• Use relational constraint solving engine
• successful approach use SAT solver

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Methods of software developmentbased on
relations and constraints

• A relational engine is also useful for other
  domains than software development
• Other Examples
• course scheduling
• network configuration
• biology haplotype inference

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Build our knowledge from the ground up

• SAT and CSP solvers
• How to express relations and constraints in a way
  most suitable for the software developer and
  other users? Possibilities Alloy, Kodkod
  language, etc.
• How to translate relations and constraints to SAT
  and CSP

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SAT and CSP solvers

• Use methods of software development to develop
  SAT and CSP solvers.
• Methods we want to use
• implementation modeling using transition systems
• based on Pragmatic Programmer Tips
• Write code that writes code
• Design with contracts
• Configure, Dont integrate
• Minimize coupling
• etc