Official Handbook of MASCOT (Modular Approach to Software Construction Operation and Test), Version 3.7, Issue 1

摘要

A handbook for the Modular Approach to Software Construction Operation and Test (MASCOT) is presented. The MASCOT incorporates a means of design representation, a method for deriving the design, a way of constructing software so that it is consistent with the design, a means of executing the constructed software so that the design structure remains visible at run time, and facilities for testing the software in terms of the design structure. Of particular importance in the design representation is the ability to represent, directly, concurrent functions and the data flows between them. Individual components in the design structure are decoupled from each other. This has a significant impact on both the design method and the testing strategy and leads directly to a form of component technology familiar in all other branches of engineering. It causes a design to be expressed as a structure (or assembly) of interconnected components each of which is of a specific type. Thus, each component type has its own characteristics and embodies constraints on where and how it may be connected to other component types. But no component refers directly to another component. Such interconnection information is specified in a separate form rather like an engineering drawing.