Providing user-oriented support for software development by formal methods

Existing tools for software development by formal methods lack the user-oriented properties necessary to their effective use in software engineering. A strategy for overcoming these deficiencies by interposing a user-oriented front-end editor between the user and the formal method tool itself is proposed. The feasibility of this approach is demonstrated by adapting an existing generic language-based editor to provide a front-end to an existing theorem prover. To cater for the full range of structures which arise in formal methods, a generic model of formal method documents is defined and a corresponding front-end editor for such documents that is capable of real-time interaction with a corresponding variety of tools supporting formal methods is developed as a way of catering to the full range of structures that arise in formal methods.

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