Experience with Module-Level Specification Methods

During the past three years, SofTech has been developing design and specification methods with the goals of improving design quality, reducing integration problems, increasing software portability, and enhancing project control and estimating methods. In particular we wanted to increase the visibility of the detailed design process in order to facilitate design reviews and design iterations. We also hoped to improve the description and management of all module interfaces in order to reduce integration problems and to allow alternative implementations of a module to be "plug-to-plug" compatible–an important consideration when software systems requiring several man-years to build are designed to be portable.