A transformational method for functional prototyping

The author's work is an application of the transformational paradigm to the production of functional prototypes. The idea is to transform non executable requirements specifications into executable procedures to be used as prototype. The goal of such a prototype is to support early validation of requirements and easier modification of specifications. The source specifications are written in ELICSIR, an algebraic language which supports the incremental elaboration of specifications; ELICSIR specifications reflect the underlying process used to elaborate them. The author's work is twofold, it includes a theoretical part and a practical part. The theoretical part is devoted to the formal proof of the transformations. It is concerned with the semantics of the language involved: the algebraic semantics of ELICSIR, the model-theoretic semantics of first-order predicate logic and the operational semantics of Prolog and ML. He secondly elaborates the transformation rules, describes the implementation of these rules in the environment of the Cornell Synthesizer generator, and establishes the correctness of these rules in a formal way. Finally, the suitability of Prolog and ML as prototyping languages is assessed from his experience.