The Discovery Method: design synthesis and transformation

The Discovery Method is a complete systems analysis and design method for object-oriented systems, developed here at Sheffield. The method is known for its psychological reinforcement techniques (the so-called discovery procedures) used in requirements capture; and for its systematic design transformations that generate exemplars of recognised Design Patterns at the system level. Recent work on Discovery has concentrated on providing a complete formal semantics for the models used. Research opportunities include: extending the semantics of Tasks and Activity to State and Command design models; developing tools to support transformations from Task models to State and Command models; developing the integration of Task and Narrative models. A long-term goal is to provide a dedicated CASE tool for the Discovery Method.

For more information see, http://staffwww.dcs.shef.ac.uk/people/A.Simons/discovery/