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Date:	Sat, 3 Jan 2004 12:09:00 PST8
From:	"Lynn H. Maxson" <lmaxson@pacbell.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-programming@scoug.com
To:	"osfree" <osFree@yahoogroups.com > , "scoug-programming@scoug.com" <scoug-programming@scoug.com >
Subject:	SCOUG-Programming: QA equals testing, Part One:Detection

Content Type: text/plain

Peter Skye writes:
"My perception is that Lynn is trying to eliminate the
high-level source and "compile" directly from the specs. ..."

You must speed read what I write with comprehension
dropping off correspondingly. Somewhere along the line you
must have read my assertion that every programming
language is a specification language, but not every
specification language is a programming language. It becomes
so when an implementation exists either a compiler or
interpreter.

In truth, Peter, we always compile from a specification
language that we call a programming language. Along the
way from earlier stages of specification, analysis, and design
we have engaged in the use of other specification languages,
translating each in turn to get to our final specification
language which we compile.

Now logic programming illustrates that we only need to write
the specification language in one stage, the specification
stage, leaving it up to the software to do the remainder of
the necessary writing. That means no CASE input, only
output. No UML input, only output. No ordered input, only
output. The "no input" here refers to what using logic
programming you don't have to write or even translate.

The specification language is a programming language is an
HLL.

As to the remainder of your message anything you write in
source code is a specification. It doesn't make any difference
what language you use. Concepts like real time system, lead,
lag, threads, priorities, etc. you can encode in several forms
with a choice of multiple programming, i.e. specification,
languages. However, you can't escape what you need to
know to encode them properly.

Compiling directly from an HLL is not new. The difference lies
in imperative languages compiling only in the construction
stage while declarative languages compile in the specification
stage. If it wasn't for the need of imperative languages to
incorporate the logical organization as part of the input
process, you could do them from the specification stage as
well. If you change a few rules which allows the software to
do the logical organization, then you could do it with any
programming language.

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