Spin Model Checker, The: Primer and Reference Manual

Chapter 5. Using Design Abstraction

	“Seek simplicity, and distrust it.”
	--(Alfred North Whitehead, 1861–1947)

System design is a process of discovery. By exploring possible solutions, a designer discovers the initially unknown constraints, and weeds out the designs that seemed plausible at first, but that do not survive closer scrutiny. In the process, the designer determines not only what is right and what is wrong, but also what is relevant and what is irrelevant to the basic design premises.

For a design tool to be effective in this context, it needs to be able to assist the designer in the creation and the analysis of intuitive high-level abstractions without requiring the resolution of implementation-level detail. The tool should be able ...