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Article #10

Fuzz and definition before use

#10
From: Wilhelm Hasselbring
Date: Wed, 05 Aug 1992 08:29
24 lines
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I'm using Z since a few month with the fuzz package and recognized one
important drawback of Z: the principle of definition before use, which leads
to a bottom-up development of the specification. Sometimes, it would be more
natural to write and explain the specification in a top-down manner.

My question to this group is: Is it possible to *announce* a forthcoming
definition to fuzz?

The important point is that any specification must be written in a way such
that its definitions can be ordered to satisfy the principle of definition
before use. This avoids recursive definitions in which a schema includes
itself, for instance. It would be nice to have a fuzz directive, which
announces a forthcoming definition.  The existing fuzz directives allow
preliminary, invisible definitions, but the later final definitions cannot be
type-checked, because they are redefinitions of global names.

Thanks for your help, Willi

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W Hasselbring, University of Essen              willi@informatik.uni-essen.de
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W Hasselbring, University of Essen              willi@informatik.uni-essen.de
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!mcsun!Germany.EU.net!unido!unieinf!willi
From: willi@algol.informatik.uni-essen.de (Wilhelm Hasselbring)
Newsgroups: comp.specification.z
Subject: Fuzz and definition before use
Keywords: Fuzz
Message-ID: <2900@unieinf.UUCP>
Date: 5 Aug 92 08:29:39 GMT
Sender: news@unieinf.UUCP
Organization: University of Essen, Germany
Lines: 24