The Larch / Smalltalk Interface Speci cation

Object-oriented programming languages, such as Smalltalk, help one to build reusable program modules. The reuse of program modules requires adequate documentation | formal or informal. Larch/Smalltalk is a formal speciication language for specifying such reusable Smalltalk modules. Larch/Smalltalk rmly separates speciication from implementation. In Larch/Smalltalk the unit of speciication is an abstract data type, which is an abstraction of the behavior produced by one or more Smalltalk classes. A type can be a subtype of other types, which allows types to be organized based on speciied behavior, and also allows for inheritance of their speciications. Larch/Smalltalk specii-cations are developed using speciication tools integrated in the Smalltalk programming environment.