Practical visual techniques for joint refinement of structure and temporal behaviour in reactive system design

Highlights are presented of the visual notation MachineCharts and the corresponding architectural design method. The approach has its roots in Buhr diagrams for Ada, but is both deeper than Buhr diagrams and wider in scope than Ada. Relationships to current tools are identified. The primary objectives were to provide human designers with means of (1) building confidence in the robustness of their designs for reactive systems, by exploring them visually in the (time, place) domain in powerful ways, and (2) making design thinking portable between different implementation technologies