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© 2010 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Chapter 2
Representing Structure in
a Software System Design
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Michael Jackson
The Open University
2.1 INTRODUCTION
Introducing a digital computer into a system brings an unprecedented level of behavioral
complexity. Anyone who has ever written and tested a small program knows that so-
ware, even when apparently simple, can exhibit complex and surprising behaviors. To
deal eectively with this complexity, the program text must be structured to allow the
programmer to understand clearly how the program will behave in execution (Dijkstra
1968). at is, the program’s behavior structure must be clearly represented by ...