Component-based Systems as an Aid to Design Validation

There is a continuing need for software engineers to better quality systems more quickly. Component based technologies promise to make this possible, but modern systems are too complex for a full analysis of their behaviour to be practical. We propose that a reasonable alternative is analyse abstract models of the essential features of a system. Since these models are abstract, they need contain only details relevant to the aspect of the system under consideration. Consequently they can be small enough to be constructed quickly and analysed thoroughly using formal methods. Tools are required which are accessible to the novice but remain powerful enough to build models with a formal foundation so that they can be used by system designers who have limited expertise in the use of formal methods. We propose our tool, RolEnact as a candidate for this rôle.