Programme
The workshop programme is now available as a PDF file.
Introduction
In the period 1992-1995 the object-oriented version of the formal
specification language VDM-SL, called VDM++, was developed though the
European Commission's Afrodite project. VDM++ was used in a wide
range of commercial and research projects. This also led to the
development of a commercially available, industry strength tool
(VDMTools) by the Danish company IFAD. Recently, in January 2005, a
book appeared (Validated Designs for Object-oriented Systems, Fitzgerald
et al.) that illustrates the use of VDM++ technology, including a number
of industrial case studies.
At the beginning of 2004 the authors of this book began to realise that
new insights in tool support for formal specification languages, the use of
new technologies such as XML, and the current trend in open source
software were good incentives for starting the development of a second
tool set supporting the use of VDM++. This open source project has been
named Overture (www.overturetool.org).
The mission of the project is twofold: to provide an industrial-strength tool
to allow the use of precise abstract models in software development, and
to foster an environment that allows researchers and other interested
parties to experiment with language modifications and extensions to the
tool. The Eclipse integrated development environment (www.eclipse.org)
was selected as the basis for such a new, open source, VDM++ tool.
Currently a basic toolset exists (VDM++ to XML parser, as an Eclipse
plug-in), and students from Denmark (Technical University of Denmark)
and Portugal (University of Minho) are already working on improvements
and further developments.
Aim
The aim of the workshop is to reflect on 13 years of history with VDM++
and to boost the momentum that currently exists for the Overture project.
In particular, we want to publicly review the proposed architecture of the
Overture toolset, which is a necessary boundary condition to enable
distributed open source development successfully.
Target audience
People interested in VDM++, object-oriented design and open source
developments are expected to attend.
Workshop programme
The workshop programme will be partly based on invited contributions,
partly on spontaneous contributions. A "call for contributions" will be
released as soon as the workshop proposal is accepted by the FM'05
workshop organisers. Apart from (conventional) presentations, the
programme will also include "brown paper sessions" to stimulate
interaction and to make the workshop a real "work"-shop.
Potential topics include:
- VDM++ the language (tutorial)
- VDMTools (the current tool set supporting VDM++)
- Semantics of VDM++
- Student work (should be very interactive)
- The Overture tool: architecture, plug-ins (should be very interactive)
- Invited subjects
- Organisation of the Overture open source effort (funding in particular)
Workshop chairs
The workshop will be chaired by Dr. Nico Plat (West Consulting, The Netherlands) and Dr. Peter Gorm Larsen (Systematic Software Engineering, Denmark). For more information on the workshop please contact either of them.
Contributions
Your are invited to actively contribute to the workshop. If you intend to do so (e.g. by giving a presentation) then please contact the workshop chairs before 1 June 2005.