NoFun: a notation to state non-functional specifications at the product level

Abstract

This paper presents NoFun, a comprehensive and formally-defined notation to deal with non-functional specifications in software systems at the product level in the component programming framework. This notation is intended to complement the existing specification languages which focus on the functional behaviour of programs, and it is independent of the specification and programming languages used to develop the system. More precisely, NoFun is used to define both the set of non-functional properties which characterise a software component in the system and, for every implementation of this component, its non-functional behaviour as well as its non-functional requirements on other imported components. Although the proposal is developed in the component programming framework, we think that the results may be generalised to any other field that must take non-functional issues into account.