Closing the Gap Between Specification and Programming: Vdm++ and Scala

The authors argue that a modern programming language such as Scala offers a level of succinctness, which makes it suitable for program and systems specification as well as for high-level programming. They illustrate this by comparing the language with the Vdm++ specification language. The comparison also identifies areas where Scala perhaps could be improved, inspired by Vdm++. They furthermore illustrate Scala's potential as a specification language by augmenting it with a combination of parameterized state machines and temporal logic, defined as a library, thereby forming an expressive but simple runtime verification framework.