Durra: an integrated approach to software specification, modeling and rapid prototyping

Software specification, modeling and prototyping activities are often performed at different stages in a software development project by individuals who use different specialized notations. The recent development of commercial executable specification tools represents a potential semi-automated link between specification, modeling and prototyping activities. Unfortunately, these tools can be inadequate for analyzing the performance of complex real-time systems. These problems are largely due to the fact that the formalisms upon which most executable specification tools are based represent too high a level of abstraction. The authors feel that to effectively link specification, modeling, and prototyping activities, integration must occur at the level of a technical architecture. They believe that Durra currently under development can provide this integration. Durra is a non-procedural language designed to support the development of distributed applications consisting of multiple, concurrent large-grained tasks executing in a heterogeneous network. Durra provides a framework through which one can specify the structure of an application in conjunction with its behavior, timing and implementation dependencies