Retrenching partial requirements into system definitions: A simple feature interaction case study

Abstract

In conventional model-oriented formal refinement, the abstract model is supposed to capture all the properties of interest in the system, in an as-clutter-free-as-possible manner. Subsequently, the refinement process guides development inexorably towards a faithful implementation. However refinement says nothing about how to obtain the abstract model in the first place. In reality, developers experiment with prototype models and their refinements until a workable arrangement is discovered. Retrenchment is a formal technique intended to capture some of the informal approach to a refinable abstract model in a formal manner that will integrate with refinement. This is in order that the benefits of a formal approach can migrate further up the development hierarchy. The basic ideas of retrenchment are presented, and a simple telephone system feature interaction case study is elaborated. This illustrates not only how retrenchment can relate incompatible and partial models to a more definitive consolidated model during the development of the contracted specification, but also that the same formalism is applicable in a reengineering context, where the subsequent evolution of a system may be partly incompatible with earlier design decisions. The case study illustrates how the natural method of composing retrenchments can give results that are too liberal in certain cases, and stronger laws of composition are derived for systems possessing suitable properties. It is shown that the methodology can encompass more ad hoc and custom built techniques such as Zave’s layered feature engineering approach to applications exhibiting a feature oriented architecture (such as telephony).

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