Specification Facets for More Precise, Focused Documentation

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1997
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Leavens, Gary
Ruby, Clyde
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Computer Science

Computer Science—the theory, representation, processing, communication and use of information—is fundamentally transforming every aspect of human endeavor. The Department of Computer Science at Iowa State University advances computational and information sciences through; 1. educational and research programs within and beyond the university; 2. active engagement to help define national and international research, and 3. educational agendas, and sustained commitment to graduating leaders for academia, industry and government.

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The Computer Science Department was officially established in 1969, with Robert Stewart serving as the founding Department Chair. Faculty were composed of joint appointments with Mathematics, Statistics, and Electrical Engineering. In 1969, the building which now houses the Computer Science department, then simply called the Computer Science building, was completed. Later it was named Atanasoff Hall. Throughout the 1980s to present, the department expanded and developed its teaching and research agendas to cover many areas of computing.

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1969-present

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Abstract

Specification languages could aid reuse to a larger extent if they could document all important facets of software, not just functional behavior. Since a specification language designer cannot know exactly what aspects of a piece of software will be important, users should be able to do ``metaspecification''; that is, users should be able to declare new facets, and then use these facets to specify their software. Examples of facets that users might want to specify include time and space usage, safety considerations, aliasing, error checking, the user interface, etc.

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Copyright © Gary T. Leavens and Clyde Ruby, 1997.

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