Chapter 1: Engineering, Software and Hypotheses

AbstractThis document is one of the parts of the electronic version of the PhD thesis by S.F.M. van Vlijmen [69]. The goal of the PhD project was to get a better understanding of the problems with the integration of formal specification technique in the day to day software practice. The approach followed was to execute a number of projects in cooperation with industry on realistic cases.This document gives an abstract presentation of engineering in general, then focuses on efforts, goals, ideas and techniques with respect to the engineering of software. Next a comprehensive overview of formal specifation technique is given. Finally, seven hypotheses are presented about the role of formal specification technique in software engineering