HCLIE: a logic-based requirement language for new software engineering paradigms

Abstract

It is a paradigm of software engineering that a complete representation of the problem domain (called requirement theory) is repeatedly refined by correctness-preserving transformations into the program itself. The design of a requirement theory has to allow for such a design methodology. The authors argue that currently available languages intended to yield requirement theories fail to meet these demands. They present a logic-based requirement language, which can be used to specify the requirements for software systems under the emerging methodology. The language presented is based on first-order predicate logic but augments standard first-order logic by introducing hierarchies and exceptions to its generalisations, in order to allow for a more natural description of the problem domain.