RAPID MODIFICATION OF RELIABLE AND EFFICIENT SOFTWARE

THIS PROJECT ADDRESSES EFFICIENT PROTOTYPING OF RELIABLE SOFTWARE SYSTEMS AND DEALS WITH THE FOUR INTERWINED ISSUES OF RELIABILITY, REUSABILITY, COPING WITH CHANGES TO THE PROTOTYPE, AND GENERATING EFFICIENT CODE FORM SPECIFICATIONS. THE COMPANY HAS DEVELOPED A LANGUAGE FOR DESCRIBING IMPLEMENTATIONS OF DATA STRUCTURES AND A DATA- TYPE REFINEMENT ENVIRONMENT (DTRE) FOR TRANSFORMING TO CODE THE SPECIFICAITONS ANNOTATED WITH IMPLEMENTATION DIRECTIVES.IN ORDER TO GENERATE EFFICIENT CODE FROM SPECIFICATIONS, THEIMPLEMENTATIONS OF DATA STRUCTURES MUST BE CAREFULLY SELECTED. SINCE FULLY AUTOMATIC SELECTION OF IMPLEMENTATIONS IS BEYOND CURRENT TECHNOLOGY, A SEMI- AUTOMATIC SYSTEM FOR DATA STRUCTURE SELECTION (DDS) WILL BE DEVELOPED. WITH THIS SYSTEM, THE USER WILL SUPPLY SOME IMPLEMENTATION DIRECTIVES AND THE SYSTEM WILL DETERMINE THE REMAINDER. THE DSS TOGETHER WITH THE DTRE WILL LEAD TO CRITICAL, ASYMPTOTIC IMPROVEMENTS IN THE EFFICIENCY OF RAPIDPROTOTYPES BASED ON EXECUTABLE SPECIFICATIONS. JUST AS CRITICAL IS THE INCREASE IN RELIABILITY THAT COMES FROM AUTOMATING THE DERIVATION OF EFFICIENT CODE FROM SPECIFICATIONS. DTRE IS BEING CONSIDERED FOR A COMMERCIAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT BASED ON EXECUTABLE SPECIFICATIONS AND PROGRAM SYNTHESIS. DSS COMBINED WITH DTRE COULD BE APPLIED FOR GENERATION OF EARLY, REASONABLY EFFICIENT PROTOTYPES IN REQUIREMENTS ANALYSIS AND AS A DESIGN AND CODING TOOL.