This book summarizes work done by the authors under the Esprit Tool Use
project (1985-1990), at GMD in Karlsruhe and at Berlin University of
Technology. It provides a comprehensive description of the generic
development language Deva designed by the authors. Much of the research
reported in this monograph is inspired by the work of Michel Sintzoff on
formal program development; he contributed an enlightening Foreword.
Deva is essentially a typed functional language with certain deduction
rules. The difference with ordinary languages is, of course, the
application domain: the types serve here to express propositions such as
specifications or programs, rather than just data classes. Its practical
applicability was tested on several non-trivial case studies. The whole
book is written using the DVWEB system, a WEB for Deva, beeing
implemented at the Berlin University of Technology.