Enhancing the software maintenance factor in JSD using rules

Abstract

Although the underlying philosophy of the JSD (Jackson System Development) method promotes orthogonality of system components in its specification, it fails to make explicit the business requirement policies that define the systems. The formalism adopted by JSD implicitly translates user requirement policies into lower-level procedural representation, thus burying the requirement policies in program code. The difficulty with such form of translation becomes apparent when user requirements change. Accommodating requirement changes then would be expensive. The authors recognize the advantage of using rules in representing user requirement policies and suggest the use of rules in making explicit the representation of business requirement policies in a JSD specification, so as to enhance the maintainability of a system.