Objectives of the British Standardisation of a Language to support the Vienna Development Method - The BSI VDM Specification Language Standardisation Panel - United Kingdom

This has resulted in the existence of two closely related languages to support each style of development. The standardisation project will as its starting point take these two language definitions and harmonise them to produce a single language definition. This language will be called VDM Specification Language or VDM-SL. The first draft for public comment will be available by the end of 1987 and it is expected that a British Standard will be available by Autumn 1988. The standardisation project is being run under the auspices of the British Standards Institute. The technical work is being undertaken by a panel of experts from Denmark, West Germany and the United Kingdom. The panel has established close links with the VDM Europe group. The project has also been publicised at the International Standards Organisation by BSI and it is hoped that links with other member countries of ISO will develop during the lifetime of the project. The panel has set up two working parties, one working on the concept of state and the type model for VDM-SL, and the other is working on the problem of structuring (modularisation) of large specifications. The work is being done by generating working papers which covering the major topics that will be included in the standard. In addition a skeletal standard document has been produced which is being used as a framework for integrating the contributions from members of the panel. The following sections give a brief description of the of the topics that are expected to be included in the final standard document.