From: lagemaat@cs.utwente.nl (Jeroen van de Lagemaat)
Subject: Re: parallel programming and specification tools
Organization: University of Twente, Dept. of Computer Science
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 12:51:37 GMT

In article <1992Aug11.065833.3465@weigele.de>, martin@weigele.de (Martin Weigele) writes:
|> In article <1992Aug7.121850.26706@hubcap.clemson.edu> lagemaat@cs.utwente.nl  
|> (Jeroen van de Lagemaat) writes:
|> > In article <tencate.713092810@galaxy>, tencate@ph.tn.tudelft.nl (Eric ten  
|> Cate) writes:
|> > LOTOS was developed within ISO as part of the work of JTC1 (TC97 in the past)
|> > in SC21 (Information Processing Systems), the group responsible for OSI.
|> > LOTOS was applied there mainly to communication protocols, e.g. Transport
|> > Protocol and Service of OSI are described in LOTOS and published as Technical
|> > Reports TR 10023 and 10024 last month.
|> > Also, most of the work done in the area of Conformance Testing in ISO is now  
|> based on LOTOS.
|> 
|> "ISO and conformance testing" rings the bell. I cannot say much about Lotos,  
|> since I haven't used it. However, from my industrial experience with "ISO and  
|> conformance testing", e.g. an ill-designed ISO test specification language, I  
|> can only warn you:
|> 
|> Be suspicious of any (ISO, or other "official") standard in computing that has  
|> been developed by committee. Before adopting its use, unless you absolutely  
|> have to, check carefully by applying common sense and independent judgement.  
|> Don't forget: We just got rid of a whole political empire where everything was  
|> to work according to "equal standards" and did not, so don't let the "ISO"  
|> stamp impress you! Most good standards are approved de-facto standards that  
|> were already there.
|> 
|> Development by standardization committee often means the least common  
|> denominator with regard to quality and clarity of the object under development,  
|> not to speak about intentional bugs and fuzziness introduced into standards by  
|> participating companies for the sake of their business advantage. 
|> 
|> Besides, the crucial thing about Formal Methods is "What tool support is  
|> available" - and be suspicious of "tools" as well!! There are few real good  
|> ones.
|> 
|> -- 
|> Martin Weigele, Kapellenweg 32, D-W-5300 Bonn 2
|> phone +49 228 333252 home, +49 228 9866385 office
|> email: martin@weigele.de

From my own working experience in ISO working groups I have to admit that
most of your statement is right. Especially Conformance testing is a subject 
in which politics play an important, if not dominant, role. E.g. the test 
specification language you mention (TTCN) is as its name states a political
compromise (Tree and Tabular Combined Notation).

However, the ISO standard on Conformance testing (IS 9646) does play a
big role in this field, e.g. by putting the noses of people involved in
testing in the same direction.

Moreover, I disagree completely when you use this statement in relation to 
LOTOS.  LOTOS is an ISO standard (8807), but not at all one in which political
compromises have jeopordized its quality. On the contrary, LOTOS has problems
to stay alive within ISO because of its quality and inherent capability to 
show defeciencies in standards. E.g. The LOTOS specification of Transport
standards (recently published as Technical Reports) showed numerous Defects
in these standards. 
This is also the reason why most of the work on Conformance Testing is on 
applying LOTOS.


About tool development I would like to add the following: Due to its formal
nature of LOTOS, tools to support it can be checked for conformance with 
the standard. As a matter of fact Conformance Tests for LOTOS tools are being
developed.

Give me a non-circumstancial evidence for suspicion.
By the way, would you like to try LOTOS tools?


    ___
 __/   \__________  Jeroen van de Lagemaat    <lagemaat@cs.utwente.nl>
|  \___/          |         
|___     __   ___ | University of Twente     
| |  |  /  \ (__  | Tele-Informatics & Open Systems
| |__|__\__/____) | P.O. Box 217  NL-7500 AE Enschede  The Netherlands
|_________________| tel. +31 53 893684              tfx. +31 53 333815

                    Humour, you're making me laugh.
                                    - Herman Finkers, Dutch comedian -