Introduction

Abstract

This chapter gives a tutorial introduction to the Methodology. It serves as an overall rationale for the PROSPECTRA Project and relates this part to those on the Language Family and the System. In the methodology of PROgram development by SPECification and TRAnsformation, algebraic specifications are the basis for constructing correct and efficient programs by gradual transformation. The combination of algebraic specification and functional increases abstraction, reduces development effort, and allows reasoning about correctness and direct optimisations. The uniformity of the approach to program and meta-program development is stressed (cf. also the chapter on Uniform Transformational Development in part III chapter 1).