Formalism and Method

We argue that the impact of formalisms would much beneet from adopting the habit of systematically and carefully relating formalisms to methods and to the engineering context, at various levels of granularity. Consequently we oppose the attitude of connating formalism and method, with the inevitable consequence of emphasizing the formalism or even just neglecting the methodological aspects. To make our reeections more concrete we illustrate our viewpoint addressing one particular activity within the software development process, namely the use of formal speciication techniques. To qualify the essential ingredients of a formal method for speciication, we propose a pattern covering the formal and the methodological aspects and also their mutual relationships. Our pattern includes some novel concepts such as the relationship between end-products and formal models, which allows to relate in a rigorous way diierent methods, outlining the concept of compositionality and of simulation of methods.