A method for the description and analysis of complex software systems

This paper outlines a modeling scheme and associated method of analysis which are particularly useful during the design of complex software systems since they facilitate an iterative design methodology and provide feedback to help guide the creation of the final design. The process oriented modeling scheme is outlined first and a brief indication is given of how it may be easily and naturally used in a top-down elaboration of a system's design. Then the method of analysis is outlined and shown to provide a procedure for deriving algebraic descriptions of a system's internal behavior which may be used to check whether or not the system is correct in the sense that it exhibits desirable behavior and does not exhibit undesirable behavior. This paper necessarily gives only a brief overview of the description shceme and method of analysis and full details may be found in [1] and [2].