Xref: utzoo comp.sys.next:6855 comp.software-eng:3860 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!hsi!stpstn!cox From: cox@stpstn.UUCP (Brad Cox) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next,comp.software-eng Subject: Software-IC Catalog Keywords: Objects Standards Publication Objective-C Message-ID: <5320@stpstn.UUCP> Date: 3 Jul 90 20:33:20 GMT References: Reply-To: cox@stpstn.UUCP (Brad Cox) Organization: Stepstone Lines: 33 In article gessel@cs.swarthmore.edu (Daniel Mark Gessel) writes: >Is the NeXT community ready for a publication which would list specifications >of objects for sale (or for free), and possibly have discussions of some >standard interfaces for kinds of objects on top of NeXT Step? That I would encourage such thought should be obvious to all concerned. But I'd encourage you to think about pushing it much further than an ordinary paper or electronic catalog. Paper catalogs are sufficient for tangible components, like silicon chips and plumbing supplies. But for intangible components like Software-ICs(TM) I think that we must apply some technology to make intangibles observable. A simple way of doing this (which soon leads to fascinating implications regarding how the semantics of natural languages are established, with direct implications to specification/testing languages) is to also publish, as an precondition to the catalog, a library of executable gauges (test procedures) that detect whether a Software-IC that purports to comply with some abstract specification, does in fact do so within some tolerance for non-compliance. I'm not talking about anything high-tech here, folks. All that I mean by 'test procedure' is a C subroutine with a bunch of assert() statements inside to determine whether a putative implementation provided as an argument behaves as the test procedure expects. Compliance of Stepstone's class libraries to their abstract specifications are tested in exactly this fashion, and I've been trying to convince our development people that these test procedures, and the specifications they embody, should be released independently of Software-ICs themselves. -- Brad Cox; cox@stepstone.com; CI$ 71230,647; 203 426 1875 The Stepstone Corporation; 75 Glen Road; Sandy Hook CT 06482