Anti-Patterns (Smells) in Temporal Specifications

Abstract

Temporal specifications are essential inputs for verification and synthesis. Despite their importance, temporal specifications are challenging to write, which might limit their use by software engineers. To this day, almost no quality attributes of temporal specifications have been defined and investigated. Our work takes a first step toward exploring and improving the quality of temporal specifications by proposing a preliminary catalog of anti-patterns (a.k.a. smells). We base the catalog on our experience in developing and teaching temporal specifications for verification and synthesis. In addition, we examined publicly available specification repositories and relevant literature. Finally, we outline our future plans for a better understanding of what constitutes high-quality temporal specifications and the development of tools that will help engineers write them.