Come, Let's Play - Harel, David

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Résumé :
The play-in/play-out method and tool presented in this book is a powerful new approach to software and systems engineering and modeling based on formal methods and program semantics. The life sequence charts (LSC) as the language of this approach generalize the message sequence charts of UML and are presented in this book for the first time in a coherent and systematic way. The method described is fascinating from the scientific point of view. The associated play-engine tool available from the authors' Web site has broad appeal to professionals in software engineering, systems engineering, and modeling and simulation....

Biographie:
David Harel is the Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. He is also co-founder of I-Logix, Inc., Andover, MA, and of SenseIT Technologies, Ltd. (DigiScents Israel). His research interests are in theoretical computer science (especially computability, automata theory and logics of programs), and in software and systems engineering (especially specification and modeling, object-oriented analysis and design, and visual languages), as well as the aesthetic layout of diagrams, clustering algorithms and the synthesis and communication of smell. He is the inventor of the language of statecharts (1983), was part of the team that designed the Statemate (1984-1987) and Rhapsody (1997) tools, and was co-inventor of LSCs (1998). His work is central to the behavioral aspects of the UML. He devotes part of his time to expository work: In 1984 he delivered a lecture series on Israeli radio, and in 1998 he hosted a series on Israeli television...

Sommaire:
I. Prelude.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Setting the Stage.- 3. An Example-Driven Overview.- 4. The Model: Object Systems.- II. Foundations.- 5. The Language: Live Sequence Charts (LSCs).- 6. The Tool: The Play-Engine.- III. Basic Behavior.- 7. Variables and Symbolic Messages.- 8. Assignments and Implemented Functions.- 9. Conditions.- 10. Branching and Subcharts.- IV. Advanced Behavior: Multiple Charts.- 11. Executing Multiple Charts.- 12. Testing with Existential Charts.- V. Advanced Behavior: Richer Constructs.- Loops.- Transition to Design.- Classes and Symbolic Instances.- Time and Real-Time Systems.- Forbidden Elements.- VI Enhancing the Play-Engine.- Smart Play-Out (with H. Kugler).- Inside and Outside the Play-Engine.- A Play-Engine Aware GUI Editor.- Future Research Directions.- VII Appendices.- A. Formal Semantics of LSCs.- A.1 System Model and Events.- A.2 LSC Specification.- A.3 Operational Semantics.- B. XML Description of a GUI Application.- C. The Play-Engine Interface.- C.1 Visual Basic Code.- D. The GUI Application Interface.- D.1 Visual Basic Code.- E. The Structure of a (Recorded) Run.- References.