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Minds and Machines
Published in: Minds and Machines 2/2011

01-05-2011

Specification

Author: Raymond Turner

Published in: Minds and Machines | Issue 2/2011

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Abstract

The specification and implementation of computational artefacts occurs throughout the discipline of computer science. Consequently, unpacking its nature should constitute one of the core areas of the philosophy of computer science. This paper presents a conceptual analysis of the central role of specification in the discipline.
previous article Some Philosophical Issues in Computer Science
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Footnotes
1
Extreme programming, and even cowboy coding, may have very loose design strategies and no specified methodology of development, but they still have some goals.
 
2
We shall not try and be precise about the notion of a functional specification. This rough characterisation will serve our purpose. Nor shall we be concerned with the full range of practical aspects of software engineering that involve requirements capture and design methodologies. Here we shall concentrate on what we take to be the central philosophical issue.
 
3
“The software architecture of a program or computing system is the structure or structures of the system, which comprise software components, the externally visible properties of those components, and the relationships among them.” (Bass 2003).
 
4
Indeed, they are candidates for computer science examples of artificial kinds (Franssen 2009). There is much more that needs to be explored here, but it requires more space than we presently have.
 
5
With more complex specifications we have to work much harder. While choosing the appropriate underlying ontological setting makes it possible to make precise most aspects of a specification (Turner R, Computable Models, 2009), it is a non-trivial task.
 
6
One might suggest that ostensive definitions may be used as the basis of specification, and these may be based on physical devices. Suppose I request you to build me a stick of length one metre. Is this not to use a physical object, the stick in Paris, as the basis of a specification? Not in the sense that no abstract notion or device is involved. The length Metre is not something that changes with the length of the Paris stick. Once baptized, the length is fixed; it is the same in all possible worlds. There is clearly much more that might be said here, but it would take us too far afield.
 
7
Perhaps the artificial kinds of computer science are encoding some notion of real essence for these artefacts and thereby determine what fit for use might be taken to be.
 
8
This is not intended to be the same as the so called software/hardware distinction (Moor 1978).
 
9
Much the same is true of those object-oriented approaches to software design e.g. (Eden 2011).
 
10
Something akin to this is implicitly asserted in terms of clients and programmers, in (Morgan 1990).
 
11
…the other is to interpret rules and axioms of form (C) as empirical claims concerning the possible behaviour of the target machine thereby described… (Fetzer 1988).
… (C) is actually a prediction of what will occur when statement S is ultimately executed…It is a static prediction of its later dynamic execution (Colburn 2000).
 
12
We shall now go more deeply into the debate about the nature of explanation and its connection with causation. The main focus here is in the role of testing and verification of scientific theories.
 
13
Of course, specifications and designs do employ scientific and other knowledge; knowledge about how to construct the artefact. Often the difference is characterized as the difference between knowing how and knowing that (McCarthy 2006).
 
14
The difference between a model and a theory is controversial and not that significant for the present discussion since the central point may be phrased in terms of theories or models. Anguis (2010) contains a very clear account of this distinction as applied to program construction.
 
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Metadata
Title
Specification
Author
Raymond Turner
Publication date
01-05-2011
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Published in
Minds and Machines / Issue 2/2011
Print ISSN: 0924-6495
Electronic ISSN: 1572-8641
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-011-9239-x

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