A software package specification validation process

This paper proposes a technique for specification validation, termed the scenario-based prototype approach. This method of validation is particularly useful for software packages comprising substantial numbers of unrelated or loosely coupled functions able to act on a unified database but not restricted as to their actions or sequencing. Such packages commonly occur in computer-aided design systems, numerical mathematics software and graphics displays. The proposed methodology has been implemented using the INGRES database management system. It has been used to validate the specification of the Graphics Kernel System and to simulate the operation of GKS at level 0.