An object-oriented prototyping approach to system development

This paper proposes a new prototyping approach to software development to produce better-quality software more productively than traditional prototyping methodologies by combining formal methods and object-oriented techniques with prototyping concepts. In the prototyping process, specifications are gradually replaced with implementations which may be retrieved from libraries and refined afterwards. The executable specification language provides not only behavior/performance analysis but also simulation capabilities which are essential to prototyping. Additionally, a special mechanism called hybrid simulation takes it possible to simulate a mixture of specification and implementation, and serves to validate the intended system. Software reuse by object-orientation is one basis of the methodology, and eliminates the risk of producing a quick-and-dirty product, which is a typical prototyping problem. The seamlessness of object-orientation is indispensable to the methodology. >