Specification languages and related topics

This blog is devoted to specification languages: languages for modelling and specifying the behaviour of software. There'll be a fair emphasis on Alloy but there'll also be coverage of Z, OCL and possibly other languages. In particular I'll look at how to model certain designs in one or more of these languages.

Since specification languages are usually declarative, based on first order logic (FOL) and frequently have roots in set theory, there'll probably also be musings on those topics as well.

Other topics that interest me are:

• Is modelling important or have agile methodologies made it irrelevant?
• Does modelling reduce the need to test software?
• Are specification languages a desirable way to model software or are they syntactically too obscure for most people?

My views on topics are likely to change over time and even to oscillate wildly. Some of what you read here may be subject to conjecture, even wrong and some of the software models could probably be improved.