research-article

Requirements engineering: from craft to discipline

Author:

Axel van LamsweerdeAuthors Info & Claims

SIGSOFT '08/FSE-16: Proceedings of the 16th ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Foundations of software engineering

Pages 238 - 249

https://doi.org/10.1145/1453101.1453133

Published: 09 November 2008 Publication History

Abstract

Getting the right software requirements under the right environment assumptions is a critical precondition for developing the right software. This task is intrinsically difficult. We need to produce a complete, adequate, consistent, and well-structured set of measurable requirements and assumptions from incomplete, imprecise, and sparse material originating from multiple, often conflicting sources. The system we need to consider comprises software and environment components including people and devices.

A rich system model may significantly help us in this task. Such model must integrate the intentional, structural, functional, and behavioral facets of the system being conceived. Rigorous techniques are needed for model construction, analysis, exploitation, and evolution. Such techniques should support early and incremental reasoning about partial models for a variety of purposes including satisfaction arguments, property checks, animations, the evaluation of alternative options, the analysis of risks, threats, and conflicts, and traceability management. The tension between technical precision and practical applicability calls for a suitable mix of heuristic, deductive, and inductive forms of reasoning on a suitable mix of declarative and operational specifications. Formal techniques should be deployed only when and where needed, and kept hidden wherever possible. The paper provides a retrospective account of our research efforts and practical experience along this route. Problem-oriented abstractions, analyzable models, and constructive techniques were permanent concerns.

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Index Terms

Requirements engineering: from craft to discipline
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Designing software
      1. Requirements analysis

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

SIGSOFT '08/FSE-16: Proceedings of the 16th ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Foundations of software engineering

November 2008

369 pages

ISBN:9781595939951

DOI:10.1145/1453101

General Chair:
Mary Jean Harrold
Georgia Institute of Technology
,
Program Chair:
Gail C. Murphy
University of British Columbia

Copyright © 2008 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 09 November 2008

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SIGSOFT '08/FSE-16: SIGSOFT 2008 -16th International Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering

November 9 - 14, 2008

Georgia, Atlanta

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https://doi.org/10.1109/RE59067.2024.00025
Hassine JDarghouth M(2024)Optimized Realization of Operational Requirements: A Goal-Oriented ApproachIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2024.341891112(88506-88533)Online publication date: 2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3418911
AlAmoudi NHassine JBaslyman M(2024)GRLMerger: an automatic approach for integrating GRL modelsRequirements Engineering10.1007/s00766-024-00413-629:2(209-259)Online publication date: 4-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00766-024-00413-6
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https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-021-00961-3
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