minutes of the Tarquinia meeting

[astes@disi.unige.it]

Dear friends,
below you find the draft minutes of the first meeting in Tarquinia.
The participants to that meeting are invited to send amendments and/ or
improvements.

You should have by now received a request about a possible meeting in Graz.
Moreover the pattern of point 4 below and some instantiation   is under
way; you should get it before the end of the week.

Best regards,
Egidio Astesiano

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Tentative Minutes of the CoFI Reactive start-up meeting
Tarquinia, June 1,1997 (in connection with WADT '97)


Participants
E.Astesiano,M.Bidoit,H.Ehrig,B.Krieg-Brueckner,P.Padawitz,G.Reggio,U.Wolter

1. Scope of the Task Group

The discussion resulted in an updating and a clarification of the
presentation of the scope (updated version below).
In particular it has been clarified that the word "reactive" serves the
purpose of a first keyword in a list, wich includes also
concurrent,distributed,parallel, object-oriented and real-time systems.
Moreover specialized and more focussed fields, like hybrid and embedded
systems are not included in the main scope, but initiatives in that
direction by groups of people are not excluded.
The same policy is adopted wrt approaches including domain specific
knowledge and techniques.
 Finally the reference to object orientation is not exclusive, in the sense
that other task groups may develop appropriate object-oriented extensions
of CASL,e.g. for functional approaches; here object orientation is seen in
connection with concurrency and distribution.

2. Relationship with CASL

It has been agreed that by "extension" of the framework we mean a possible
variety of specification languages either including full CASL or extending
some of its sublanguages,with the condition that the parts which are
expressible in CASL are so (i.e. same syntax and semantics);each one will
be called  henceforth  extension.

3. Nature of the extensions

The range of the possible extensions addressing the target systems has been
discussed.
Currently we can group them according to the following main categories.

-Combination of formalisms for concurrency (e.g. CCS,Petri Nets,CSP) with
CASL extensions/restrictions for handling classical (static) data
structures.
-Formalisms built over CASL, where processes are treated as special dynamic
data (eg Labelled Transition Logic/Dynamic Specifications,Many Sorted First
Oder temporal Logic)
-Approaches where CASL (eg HO extensions) are used for coding at the
metalevel some formalism for concurrency, in order to help reasoning

4.Planning the activity

It has been decided to send   the list subscribers (plus other invitees) a
request of indicating the kind of activity they plan along the lines of the
scope.
In order to help the potential contributors, the coordinator is asked to
provide a pattern, with one or two examples of instantiation, for answering
such request.
Finally it was decided to have a working  meeting in connection with ETAPS
'98 in Lisbon (March 30-April 3,1998).
The possibility of holding an intermediate meeting in Graz, in connection
with FME '97 and the IFIP Wg 2.2 annual meeting will be also explored.

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Appendix



Aims and Scope-Reactive Systems Task Group
Common Framework Initiative (updated)

The aim and scope of the CFI  Reactive Systems Task Group is to propose and
develop  extensions of the  common framework to deal with
reactive, concurrent, distributed, parallel and real-time  systems;
object-oriented techniques for dealing with reactiveness, concurrency and
distribution will also be considered.
The specification framework will deal with all phases from requirement to
design, including the intermediate steps. The possibility of handling also
the implementation phase by connecting specifications to languages will be
considered in a further stage.

Every  extension should either include full CASL or extend  some CASL
sublanguage and be

-  based essentially on state-of-the art  techniques
- compatible and integrated with the CASL language proposal, in the sense
   that the parts which are expressible in CASL are so(i.e. same syntax and
   semantics)
- mathematically rigorous
- able to deal with a wide range of significant systems
- sufficiently  friendly for practical use by a wide community (though not
   necessarily    industry targeted)
- guided and complemented by considerations concerning methodology and
   tools.

The Reactive Systems Task Group shall
-identify the range of  target systems and users
-analyse and compare existing techniques with respect to the above requirements
-stimulate discussion and produce documents on specific issues
-make a plan of action, possibly in different stages
-investigate the problems  concerning  compatibility and integration with
CASL, interacting with the Language Design Task Group
-develop   methodological rationales for suitable formalisms
-formulate a coherent draft proposal for a (possibly multiple) formalism.