Revisiting the Meaning of Requirements  

作　　者：金芝 

机构地区：[1]Academy of Mathematics and System Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080, P.R. China [2]Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080, P.R. China

出　　处：《Journal of Computer Science & Technology》2006年第1期32-40,共9页计算机科学技术学报（英文版）

基　　金：Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China （Grant Nos. 60233010 and 60496324）, the National Basic Research 973 Program of China （Grant No. 2002CB312004）, the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, MADIS of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

摘　　要：Understanding the meaning of requirements can help elicit the real world requirements and refine their specifications. But what do the requirements of a desired software mean is not a well-explained question yet though there are many software development methods available. This paper suggests that the meaning of requirements could be depicted by the will-to-be environments of the desired software, and the optative interactions of the software with its environments as well as the causal relationships among these interactions. This paper also emphasizes the necessity of distinguishing the external manifestation from the internal structure of each system component during the process of requirements decomposition and refinement. Several decomposition strategies have been given to support the continuous decomposition. The external manifestation and the internal structure of the system component have been defined. The roles of the knowledge about the environments have been explicitly described. A simple but meaningful example embedded in the paper illustrates the main ideas as well as how to conduct the requirements decomposition and refinement by using these proposed strategies.Understanding the meaning of requirements can help elicit the real world requirements and refine their specifications. But what do the requirements of a desired software mean is not a well-explained question yet though there are many software development methods available. This paper suggests that the meaning of requirements could be depicted by the will-to-be environments of the desired software, and the optative interactions of the software with its environments as well as the causal relationships among these interactions. This paper also emphasizes the necessity of distinguishing the external manifestation from the internal structure of each system component during the process of requirements decomposition and refinement. Several decomposition strategies have been given to support the continuous decomposition. The external manifestation and the internal structure of the system component have been defined. The roles of the knowledge about the environments have been explicitly described. A simple but meaningful example embedded in the paper illustrates the main ideas as well as how to conduct the requirements decomposition and refinement by using these proposed strategies.

关 键 词：problem decomposition requirements analysis requirements refinement 

分 类 号：TP301[自动化与计算机技术—计算机系统结构]