Development of the TUG specification language to support specification reuse

Software reuse has been a research area for improving software development productivity and quality. A language incorporating a facility for reuse amplifies the software developer´s capabilities. The TUG (Tree Unified with Grammar) specification language caters several features such as polymorphism, overloading, schemes (generic and parameterized modules), root type, renaming, and extending to foster specification reuse. This paper briefly introduces the syntax and semantics of the TUG specification language. Some important but not comprehensive features of the language for reuse are then illustrated with the aid of examples. Mechanisms for reuse are examined The augmented typed lambda calculus is used to explain the language. Finally, the capabilities, benefits, limitations and future research are discussed