Formal Specification of Design Patterns - A Balanced Approach

Toufik Taibi, Multimedia University, Cyberjaya, Malaysia
David Chek Ling Ngo, Multimedia University, Melaka, Malaysia

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Abstract

Pattern users are faced with difficulties in understanding when and how to use the increasing number of available design patterns. This is mainly due to the inherent ambiguity in the existing means (textual and graphical) of describing them. Hence, there is a need to introduce formalism in order to describe them accurately and allow rigorous reasoning about them. The main problem of existing formal specification languages for design patterns is their lack of completeness. This is mainly because they tend to focus on specifying either the structural or the behavioral aspect of design patterns but not both of them. We propose a simple yet Balanced Pattern Specification Language (BPSL) that is aimed to achieve equilibrium by specifying both aspects of design patterns. BPSL combines two subsets of logic, one from First Order Logic (FOL) and one from Temporal Logic of Actions (TLA).

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About the authors

Toufik Taibi is a lecturer at the Faculty of Information Technology, Multimedia University, Cyberjaya, Malaysia. His research interests include formal specification of design patterns, distributed object computing, object-oriented methods and software engineering. He can be reached at toufik.taibi@mmu.edu.my.

Dr. David Chek Ling Ngo is associate professor and Dean of the Faculty of Information Science and Technology at Multimedia University, Melaka, Malaysia. His current research interests center on arithmetic aesthetics, proportional and design systems, and screen design. He can be reached at david.ngo@mmu.edu.my.

Cite this article as follows: Toufik Taibi, David Check Ling Ngo: “Formal Specification of Design Patterns – A Balanced Approach”, in Journal of Object Technology, vol. 2, no. 4, July-August 2003, pp. 127-140. http://www.jot.fm/issues/issue_2003_07/article4