Algebraic Specification: A Step Towards Future Software Engineering

The wide spectrum language CIP-L offers, among other concepts, algebraic abstract types for the formulation of formal problem specifications. This concept has been used for a real-life, large-scale application, viz. the (formal) specification of the (kernel of the) program transformation system CIP-S. From the general experiences with formal specification and the technical experiences in using CIP-L (with all its particularities) that were gained in this project, a number of objectives are derived, both for the design of practically usable languages based on the idea of algebraic specification and their support by appropriate tools as part of a comprehensive software engineering discipline.