Hints to Specifiers

I present a list of hints for writing specifications. I address high-level issues like learning to abstract and low-level issues like getting the details of logical expressions right. This paper should be of interest not only to students of formal methods but also to their teachers. This research is sponsored by the Wright Laboratory, Aeronautical Systems Center, Air Force Materiel Command, USAF, and the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) under grant number F33615-93-1-1330. Views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of Wright Laboratory or the United States Government. Keywords: formal methods, formal specification, software engineering, education, discrete mathematics, mathematical logic, algebraic specifications, Z, Larch 1. Motivation Over the years I have been accumulating hints that I give students in response to common..