Specifying quality requirements in a formally defined language standard

The forthcoming programming language standard for Modula-2 is the first to use a formal notation to express its language requirements. While the precision that a mathematical model brings should itself ensure high quality in conforming implementations, it is remarkable that considerable effort has been expended in adding explicit quality-attributes to the standard. The paper reports on how this has been achieved and suggests that standards based on formal models offer clear opportunities for the incorporation of quality-related requirements