Towards a formalization of constraint diagrams

Joseph (Yossi) Gil, John Howse, Stuart Kent

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceeding with ISSN or ISBNConference contribution with ISSN or ISBNpeer-review

Abstract

Geared to complement UML and to the specification of large software systems by non-mathematicians, constraint diagrams are a visual language that generalizes the popular and intuitive Venn diagrams and Euler circles, and adds facilities for quantifying over elements and navigating relations. The language design emphasizes scalability and expressiveness while retaining intuitiveness. Spider diagrams form a subset of the notation, leaving out universal quantification and the ability to navigate relations. Spider diagrams have been given a formal definition. This paper extends that definition to encompass the constraint diagram notation. The formalization of constraint diagrams is non-trivial: it exposes subtleties concerned with the implicit ordering of symbols in the visual language, which were not evident before a formal definition of the language was attempted. This has led to an improved design of the language.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Human Centric Computing Languages and Environments
Place of PublicationNew York, USA
PublisherIEEE Computer Society
Pages72-79
Number of pages8
ISBN (Print)0780371984
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2001
EventProceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Human Centric Computing Languages and Environments - Stresa, Italy, 5-7 September, 2001
Duration: 1 Jan 2001 → …

Conference

ConferenceProceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Human Centric Computing Languages and Environments
Period1/01/01 → …

Keywords

  • Visual formalisms
  • software specification
  • formal methods

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