Ripple: a formally specified prototyping system

The intent of the research is to cast the prototyping method in a formal setting and to demonstrate the feasibility of such a formalization. As such, a formal basis for developing and analyzing prototyping methods and prototyping environments is formulated. Concurrently, an objective definition of prototyping is provided. To grasp the nature of prototyping, as opposed to traditional methods, concepts and issues that form the essence of prototyping are identified. These are: linguistic framework, formality, and abstraction levels. Denotational semantics and a corresponding implementation are used to formalize the notion of transformation from one level to the next