Transformation as a Design Process and Runtime Architecture for High Integrity Software

We have discussed two aspects of creating high integrity software that greatly benefit from the availability of transformation technology, which in this case is manifest by the requirement for a sophisticated backtracking parser. First, because of the potential for correctly manipulating programs via small changes, an automated non-procedural transformation system can be a valuable tool for constructing high assurance software. Second, modeling the processing of translating data into information as a, perhaps, context-dependent grammar leads to an efficient, compact implementation. From a practical perspective, the transformation process should begin in the domain language in which a problem is initially expressed. Thus in order for a transformation system to be practical it must be flexible with respect to domain-specific languages. We have argued that transformation applied to specification results in a highly reliable system. We also attempted to briefly demonstrate that transformation technology applied to the runtime environment will result in a safe and secure system. We thus believe that the sophisticated multi-lookahead backtracking parsing technology is central to the task of being in a position to demonstrate the existence of HIS.