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On the Construction of Engineering Handbooks
Markus Roggenbach 
,
Stefan Gruner,
Apurva Kumar,
Tom Maibaum,
Markus Roggenbach
,
Stefan Gruner,
Apurva Kumar,
Tom Maibaum,
Markus Roggenbach
SpringerBriefs in Computer Science
Swansea University Author:
Markus Roggenbach
-
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DOI (Published version): 10.1007/978-3-030-44648-2
Abstract
Established engineering disciplines (and, in a similar way, thediscipline of medicine) have desktop handbooks which are partlydescriptive and partly normative: they give the practitioners of thosedisciplines a systematic overview of their disciplines' knowledge,which comprises both topic knowle...
| Published in: | SpringerBriefs in Computer Science |
|---|---|
| ISBN: | 9783030446475 9783030446482 |
| ISSN: | 2191-5768 2191-5776 |
| Published: |
Cham
Springer International Publishing
2020
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| Online Access: |
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa54031 |
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| Abstract: |
Established engineering disciplines (and, in a similar way, thediscipline of medicine) have desktop handbooks which are partlydescriptive and partly normative: they give the practitioners of thosedisciplines a systematic overview of their disciplines' knowledge,which comprises both topic knowledge (about the objects which are inthe scope of the discipline), as well as method knowledge (about how toproceed in order to solve problems which often and typically arisewithin those scopes). For newly `emerging' domains or disciplines,however, for which no Handbook (HB) withnormative authority has yet been defined, the question arises of how to do this systematically and in a non arbitrary manner; this is the focus of this book.Its meta methodological tasks entail: clarification of what actually a `HB' is,the systematicidentification of what ought to be considered as `settled' knowledge(extracted from historic repositories) for inclusion into such a HB, and the`assembly' of such identified knowledge into a form which is`fit' for the purpose and conforms to the formal characteristics of {HBs} as a`literary genre'. This book is the first to reflect upon the question of how toconstruct a desktop HB. 'Settled knowledge' is defined and identifiedas the key ingredient for HB production. It is demonstrated how conceptanalysis can be used for identifying settled knowledge by utilizingthe assembled data for classification; a presentation scheme for HBarticles is developed and demonstrated to be suitable.Modern society increasingly utilizes computer systems, presuming themto be dependable, i.e., safe and secure. Railway control is a typicalexample. Computer Science needs to address the challenges of (1)designing dependable systems and (2) providing evidence for safety andsecurity properties of such, often complex, systems. Formal Methodsare one important means to address both of these questions. However,actual Formal Methods HBs are scarce or nonexistent. A HB wouldencourage and enable practitioners to use Formal Methods as anapplicable, every day tool for software development.This book is rooted in the philosophy and methodology ofengineering. It provides a clear definition of settled knowledge andconcise presentation of methodologies for HB development, exemplifiedin the railway domain. These cover the question of how to identifysettled knowledge and also of how to transform such identifiedknowledge into a set of informative handbook articles. Finally, thelimitations of these methods are discussed.With the recently emerging `discipline' of `Formal Methods in therailway domain' as our motivating and illustrative example, this bookshows, in principle, how a HB can be reasonably constructed. |
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