The SPECS (Specification and Programming Environment for Communication Software) project is a completed part of the RACE (Research and Development in Advanced Communications in Europe) programme of the European Communities to prepare for and promote pan-European Integrated Broadband Communications (IBC).
This publication provides an introduction to the project results, which represent a significant contribution to software engineering for telecommunications and offer a sound basis for telecommunications service engineering methods and techniques.
The first chapter presents background material on the project and an abstract of the SPECS approach presented in subsequent chapters. The remainder of the book is divided into two parts: a presentation of the methodology, followed by the supporting technology. Included is a chapter on the support engineering aspects of SPECS, which is what makes the SPECS approach open.
This book will prove to be of prime importance for engineers and information technologists in the telecommunications and large-system computer manufacturing industries and also for researchers and students in the communications and computer science education institutes.