The use of formal specifications in risk management as modeled in a stock tracker. – I. E. Eteng, B. E. Mbipom, I. I. Arikpo
ABSTRACT
In the course of software development, people either assume that everything will go as planned or due to the nature of software development, they make sketchy plans. These two views can lead to situations which threaten the development of software projects. Risk management is being accepted as the best practice for risk reduction and it can be used to minimize the impact of these potential problems (risks). One of the ways by which these risks in software development can be managed is through the use of formal methods. Formal methods provide more precision in thinking and documenting the early stages of the software creation process thus helping to reduce specification errors. In this papar, a stock tracker which helps users to keep track of their investment is modeled. Formal methods were applied to some aspects of the tracker which reduced risk during the modeling phase and the Java programming language was used to develop some part of the stock tracking software. The developed program provides facilities for users to check the return on their investment. The ability for the Stock Tracker to compute the return on investment for a user shows that it is quite an effective tool which users can apply not only to keep track of investments, but also to prevent losses that could ruin their investment.