++++++++++++++++++ FME2001: - Review reports for paper 50 +++++++++++++++++++++ - Dear author(s) : this file was extracted automatically from a very large - mailbox. In case you find any problem concerning mail encodings (or any - other kind of anomaly disturbing your understanding of the reviews) please - email any of the PC cochairs (pamela@research.att.com,jno@di.uminho.pt). ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ PAPER NUMBER: 50 CATEGORY: unspecified TITLE: Protected Import in Modular VDM: Towards a Coadaptation of Closed and Open Views of Modules in a Structured Specification AUTHOR(S): Theo Dimitrakos Juan Bicarregui Brian Matthews Brian Ritchie -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Briefly SUMMARIZE the paper (2-3 lines): The paper discusses how a module system might be used for VDM, concentrating on how to ensure that the semantics of an imported module does not get restricted. 2. RELEVANCE: Please provide a rating of the paper's relevance to the FME Symposium, using the scale: 0 = Out of scope 1 = Marginal interest 2 = Minority interest 3 = Majority interest 4 = Outstanding interest Numeric Rating: 2-3 Please comment your rating: I can well imagine the VDM sub-community finding this research urgent and important, but if there are more generally relevant ideas in the paper they are well buried. 3. OVERALL RECOMMENDATION: Please provide a rating of the paper's acceptability, using the scale: 1 = Strong reject 2 = Weak reject 3 = Could go either way 4 = Weak accept 5 = Strong accept Numeric Rating: 2 NB: There should be a correlation between the two rates above. 4. CONFIDENCE LEVEL: Please provide a rating oof your expertise in the area addressed by the paper, using the scale: 1 = Know virtually nothing about this area 2 = Not too knowledgeable, but I know a bit 3 = Know a moderate amount, about average I'd say 4 = Not my main area of work, but I know a lot about it 5 = My area of work, I know it extremely well Numeric Rating: 3 NB: PC members are responsible for ensuring that 1 is not used here. 5. ORIGINALITY. What is NEW and SIGNIFICANT in the work reported here? Comment: Hard to establish. For one, the paper starts out with a lot of obvious "theory", which makes it hard to decide at which point there is an original insight encoded into the formulas. My other problem is that modularisation and model preservation should have been investigated often before, but there is little evidence of that in this paper except for some references to algebraic specification. 6. How WORTHWILE is the goal of the authors? Comment: Worthwhile alright. But worrying that this "first part" of the series of papers, which covers an issue that isn't particular to VDM, already requires so much space. 7. How well is this goal EXPLAINED and JUSTIFIED? Comment: OK. 8. TECHNICAL QUALITY. Are the technical parts (definitions, statements, specifications, proofs, algorithms, etc.) SOUND? Comment: There are only definitions, no proofs or algorithms. The "soundness" of these definitions, in the sense of them correctly encoding the intuitions of the authors, should appear from the examples, but it doesn't. 9. APPLICABILITY. If the work is primarily theoretical or conceptual, are the implications in terms of applicability adequately justified? If the paper is about a new formal technique, are satisfactory arguments presented in favor of the new technique? If a methodology is proposed, is it sound? If experimental results are presented, is their relevance justified? Comment: A lot of theory, but it doesn't lead anywhere in this paper yet. The examples are incomplete, by lacking conclusions (of the kind: "so, this construction needs to be forbidden/allowed"). 10. PRESENTATION: Describe the QUALITY of the writing, including suggestions for changes where appropriate. Comment: Badly proofread (a whole picture missing?!?), many long rambling sentences, many missing/extra spaces and interpunction. 11. Were there any formatting or mechanical problems with this paper?: Missing picture? Are the figures and length acceptable?: A bit long. Are the references correct?: Badly proofread. 12. OTHER COMMENTS you believe would be useful to the author(s), including pointers to missing relevant work: +++++++++++++++++++++ End of FME 2001 Paper Review Report ++++++++++++++++++++++ PAPER NUMBER: 50 CATEGORY: unspecified TITLE: Protected Import in Modular VDM: Towards a Coadaptation of Closed and Open Views of Modules in a Structured Specification AUTHOR(S): Theo Dimitrakos Juan Bicarregui Brian Matthews Brian Ritchie -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Briefly SUMMARIZE the paper (2-3 lines): This paper is about the semantics of modules in VDM-SL. It describes a compositional approach and suggest a new form for protected import. 2. RELEVANCE: Please provide a rating of the paper's relevance to the FME Symposium, using the scale: 0 = Out of scope 1 = Marginal interest 2 = Minority interest 3 = Majority interest 4 = Outstanding interest Numeric Rating: 3 Please comment your rating: 3. OVERALL RECOMMENDATION: Please provide a rating of the paper's acceptability, using the scale: 1 = Strong reject 2 = Weak reject 3 = Could go either way 4 = Weak accept 5 = Strong accept Numeric Rating: 3.5 NB: There should be a correlation between the two rates above. 4. CONFIDENCE LEVEL: Please provide a rating oof your expertise in the area addressed by the paper, using the scale: 1 = Know virtually nothing about this area 2 = Not too knowledgeable, but I know a bit 3 = Know a moderate amount, about average I'd say 4 = Not my main area of work, but I know a lot about it 5 = My area of work, I know it extremely well Numeric Rating: 5 NB: PC members are responsible for ensuring that 1 is not used here. 5. ORIGINALITY. What is NEW and SIGNIFICANT in the work reported here? Comment:The work here is compositional and is able to deal with mutual recursion between modules at the same time. In particular the protected import is new in a VDM context. 6. How WORTHWILE is the goal of the authors? Comment: Very 7. How well is this goal EXPLAINED and JUSTIFIED? Comment: Reasonably 8. TECHNICAL QUALITY. Are the technical parts (definitions, statements, specifications, proofs, algorithms, etc.) SOUND? Comment: Yes 9. APPLICABILITY. If the work is primarily theoretical or conceptual, are the implications in terms of applicability adequately justified? If the paper is about a new formal technique, are satisfactory arguments presented in favor of the new technique? If a methodology is proposed, is it sound? If experimental results are presented, is their relevance justified? Comment: This work is primarily theoretical but it is justified. 10. PRESENTATION: Describe the QUALITY of the writing, including suggestions for changes where appropriate. Comment: Generally good 11. Were there any formatting or mechanical problems with this paper?: Yes, figure 1 is missing Are the figures and length acceptable?: Yes Are the references correct?: Yes 12. OTHER COMMENTS you believe would be useful to the author(s), including pointers to missing relevant work: General comments: It would be interesting to see an example of mutual explicit functions between modules and how this semantics obtain a LFP in this case. It might be appropriate here to include a reference to: Peter Gorm Larsen and Wieslaw Pawlowski, The formal Semantics of ISO VDM-SL}, Published by a special issue on formal methods and standards of the "Computer Standards and Interfaces" journal, September 1995. Minor points: p3,l-11: blank before dot. p5,sec4: suddenly parameters to modules are mentioned. This was not taken into account above so this should be properly presented. +++++++++++++++++++++ End of FME 2001 Paper Review Report ++++++++++++++++++++++ PAPER NUMBER: 50 CATEGORY: unspecified TITLE: Protected Import in Modular VDM: Towards a Coadaptation of Closed and Open Views of Modules in a Structured Specification AUTHOR(S): Theo Dimitrakos Juan Bicarregui Brian Matthews Brian Ritchie -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Briefly SUMMARIZE the paper (2-3 lines): The authors explore the introduction of a protecting mechanism for importing modules (in Modular VDM) which guarantees that the behaviour of the imported elements are not affected by the importing module. A formal semantics for import and export primitives is presented, and the pragmatics of protected import is discussed. 2. RELEVANCE: Please provide a rating of the paper's relevance to the FME Symposium, using the scale: 0 = Out of scope 1 = Marginal interest 2 = Minority interest 3 = Majority interest 4 = Outstanding interest Numeric Rating: 2 Please comment your rating: The relevance of the paper is the introduction of a protected import mechanism in the context of a small subset of VDM (since states and operations on state are not dealt with). This kind of primitive for importing modules is not at all new, especially in a state-less context, since, for example, OBJ3 offers the clause "protecting" (among others) with the same behaviour intended by the authors. Perhaps when the semantics is extended to deal with the full VDM language, then the contribution of the research will be more substantial. 3. OVERALL RECOMMENDATION: Please provide a rating of the paper's acceptability, using the scale: 1 = Strong reject 2 = Weak reject 3 = Could go either way 4 = Weak accept 5 = Strong accept Numeric Rating: 2 NB: There should be a correlation between the two rates above. 4. CONFIDENCE LEVEL: Please provide a rating oof your expertise in the area addressed by the paper, using the scale: 1 = Know virtually nothing about this area 2 = Not too knowledgeable, but I know a bit 3 = Know a moderate amount, about average I'd say 4 = Not my main area of work, but I know a lot about it 5 = My area of work, I know it extremely well Numeric Rating: 3 NB: PC members are responsible for ensuring that 1 is not used here. 5. ORIGINALITY. What is NEW and SIGNIFICANT in the work reported here? Comment: As explained in item 2 above, protected import in a state-less context has been explored long before, both from a semantic and from a pragmatic point of view. 6. How WORTHWILE is the goal of the authors? Comment: It seems a worthwhile goal provided it is extended for the full language. 7. How well is this goal EXPLAINED and JUSTIFIED? Comment: Good explanation and justification, but missing related work [see below]. 8. TECHNICAL QUALITY. Are the technical parts (definitions, statements, specifications, proofs, algorithms, etc.) SOUND? Comment: Seems ok. 9. APPLICABILITY. If the work is primarily theoretical or conceptual, are the implications in terms of applicability adequately justified? If the paper is about a new formal technique, are satisfactory arguments presented in favor of the new technique? If a methodology is proposed, is it sound? If experimental results are presented, is their relevance justified? Comment: The pragmatics of protected import is analysed and some applications are discussed. 10. PRESENTATION: Describe the QUALITY of the writing, including suggestions for changes where appropriate. Comment: In general, the paper is well-written and presented; just a few comments: - I think the examples should be presented before the formal definitions, as part of the motivation for the paper. The examples and the related discussions can be easily understood, in an intuitive way. - Footnote 2 could be eliminated, since reference [11] already makes this clear. - Section 6.2: "...can imposed" -> "...can be imposed" - Section 6.4: "... for for" -> "...for" - Section 8: "... an matching" -> "...a matching" "1. The use ..." -> "1. The use of ..." 11. Were there any formatting or mechanical problems with this paper?: There is some problem with the ps file concerning Figure 1, which is not printed. Using the ghostview I could notice that the figure appears but is somehow overlapped by the contents of the page. Are the figures and length acceptable?: Are the references correct?: 12. OTHER COMMENTS you believe would be useful to the author(s), including pointers to missing relevant work: I suggest that OBJ3 be considered as a source of related work. +++++++++++++++++++++ End of FME 2001 Paper Review Report ++++++++++++++++++++++