Semantic Aspects in Software Development

Abstract: This thesis presents research on how to raise the quality of software by helping developers focus on semantic aspects during the development process. Our research has so far been concentrated on software design, impolementation, testing and maintenance, but we believe that the ideas are applicable to other phases as well. The need for methods that better support software developers when working with semantic aspects was initially found in some of our industrial surveys. In these, we tried to evaluate the documentation for real software artefacts and found that semantic aspects were not handled as well as other aspects. To remedy this, we have developed an industrially applicable method that helps the developer focus on issues related to semantics. The method has been tested in a controlled experiment in a university course to evaluate its effects on the development process and the resulting product. The initial experiences of using the method were positive and the results indicate that it is possible to introduce a focus on semantics without any large overhead and still profit from higher quality software. In summary, we believe that improving the semantic aspects will improve the quality of the development process and of the resulting software