A visual syntax for Larman's operation contracts

摘要

System operation contracts were introduced by C. Larman as an application of the notion of Design by Contract (DbC) to the description of high-level system operations derived from requirements [1], [2]. A system operation contract specifies an operation in terms of changes induced in the domain. In the Responsibility Driven Development (RDD) process proposed by Larman, operation contracts play an important role in identifying and assigning systems' responsibilities, and help to construct a sound design in the design phase. Larman's notation uses a textual template to describe operation contracts. In this paper, we propose visual operation contract, which is an alternative visual notation for operation contracts. As part of the process for the definition of this visual notation, we extended and clarified informal aspects of Larman's notation in order to better accurately capture important aspects of system operations. In addition, we support our proposal by an Eclipse plug-in tool that helps to draw and manage visual operation contracts, and generates textual contracts from visual operation contracts.