Structured Analysis (SA): A Language for Communicating Ideas

Structured analysis (SA) combines blueprint-like graphic language with the nouns and verbs of any other language to provide a hierarchic, top-down, gradual exposition of detail in the form of an SA model. The things and happenings of a subject are expressed in a data decomposition and an activity de...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on software engineering Vol. SE-3; no. 1; pp. 16 - 34
Main Author: Ross, D.T.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: New York IEEE 01.01.1977
IEEE Computer Society
Subjects:
Communication
Communication system control
Data processing
Decomposition
Graphic language
Graphics
hierarchic
Language
Mathematical model
Natural language
Natural languages
requirements analysis
requirements definition
Software
Software design
Solid modeling
Steam engines
structured analysis (SA)
structured programming
system analysis
System analysis and design
system design
Systems design
top-down
ISSN:0098-5589, 1939-3520
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Structured analysis (SA) combines blueprint-like graphic language with the nouns and verbs of any other language to provide a hierarchic, top-down, gradual exposition of detail in the form of an SA model. The things and happenings of a subject are expressed in a data decomposition and an activity decomposition, both of which employ the same graphic building block, the SA box, to represent a part of a whole. SA arrows, representing input, output, control, and mechanism, express the relation of each part to the whole. The paper describes the rationalization behind some 40 features of the SA language, and shows how they enable rigorous communication which results frorn disciplined, recursive application of the SA maxim: "Everything worth saying about anything worth saying something about must be expressed in six or fewer pieces."
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ISSN:0098-5589
1939-3520
DOI:10.1109/TSE.1977.229900