"On Documenting the Requirements for
Computer Programs Based on Models of Physical Phenomena"
Dr. Konstantin Kreyman
Dr. David Parnas
Abstract
Programs for use by Scientists and Engineers are usually embodiments of
mathematical models of physical phenomena. Complete and accurate models
are usually quite complex because they must deal with the wide-variety
of situations that can arise in the real-world. Informal descriptions
of these models are often incomplete, imprecise, and, inaccurate and
are not suitable for specifying what is required of a software package.
This paper presents an approach to writing requirements documents for
such programs. It demonstrates how tabular notation can make precise
mathematical expressions more readable. It also shows how we can
document systems in which the user is given some control of the
computational method to be used.