Formalizing a design technique for distributed programs

ADL-d is a graphical design technique for parallel and distributed software, in which communication modeling plays a central part. Recently the authors have used formal methods to define ADL-d's semantics. The original objective was to provide well-defined guidelines for future implementations of ADL-d's communication constructs, but, as it turned out, significant feedback resulted to the notation itself. They give an outline of the ADL-d notation and its intuitive semantics. They also introduce the formal semantics, and discuss what impact this formalization has had on the original notation.