BENEFITS OF SDL MODELLING FOR CRITICAL SYSTEMS AND SOFTWARE: AN INTERVIEW WITH EXPERIENCED MODELLING ENGINEERS.

摘要

Facing with the increased complexity and size of critical computer systems, system and software engineers experienced the real limitations of current development methods that suffer from the lack of behaviour description. Whether modelling with formal languages such as SDL is the solution or not for improving the development process is a good question per se. But the answer is complex and generally generates more additional questions. The purpose of that paper is to try to give an answer to most of the frequently asked questions on the subject. Two experienced SDL modelling experts joined their forces to provide the most complete answers they can. The interview focuses on the Frequently Asked Questions a consultant in the field of formal methods and techniques generally has to answer during his discussions with project managers in the industry. Many answers are given in the paper addressing the most important fields such as: 1. The problematic of system engineering, which list some major causes of project failures and introduce the use of formal techniques with an emphasis put on the SDL language, 2. The way to introduce formal techniques in the development process, 3. The relationships between formal techniques and formalisms such as UML, 4. And, finally, to conclude, some figures extracted from real projects showing the return on investment of such techniques. The paper is a good introduction to the possible improvement brought by formal techniques during system or software development. The targeted audience is project managers who frequently face with major difficulties in their projects that find their origin into not mature specifications or not fully mastered designs.