Early Identification of Problem Interactions: A Tool-Supported Approach

[Context and motivation] The principle of "divide and conquer" suggests that complex software problems should be decomposed into simpler problems, and those problems should be solved before considering how they can be composed. The eventual composition may fail if solutions to simpler problems interact in unexpected ways. [Question/problem] Given descriptions of individual problems, early identification of situations where composition might fail remains an outstanding issue. [Principal ideas/results] In this paper, we present a tool-supported approach for early identification of all possible interactions between problems, where the composition cannot be achieved fully. Our tool, called the OpenPF, (i) provides a simple diagramming editor for drawing problem diagrams and describing them using the Event Calculus, (ii) structures the Event Calculus formulae of individual problem diagrams for the abduction procedure, and (iii) communicates with an off-the-shelf abductive reasoner in the background and relates the results of the abduction procedure to the problem diagrams. The theory and the tool framework proposed are illustrated with an interaction problem from a smart home application. [Contribution] This tool highlights, at an early stage, the parts in problem diagrams that will interact when composed together.