μral-a formal development support environment

The μral system has been developed as a part of the Alvey/SERC funded IPSE 2.5 project. It consists of two components, a specification support tool and a proof assistant. Together these provide support for the construction of and formal reasoning about formal specifications. The system attempts to emulate `paper and pencil´ specification and proof by making extensive use of workstation/windowing technology in its user interface. Its interface thus consists of a series of `tools´, each a separate window and each specially tailored for interaction with the different kinds of object within μral (e.g., the specification tool for constructing specifications, the proof tool for constructing proofs, etc.). This enables the user to focus attention on the current area of interest. On the other hand, the system tries to be as `open´ as possible, placing the emphasis on user, rather than machine, control. The machine is thus responsible for all `book-keeping´ aspects of the system, that is maintaining consistency and tracking incompleteness, leaving the user free to extend and modify the system at will within the bounds of the inbuilt consistency constraints