Reification (computer Science) - Data Reification Vs. Data Refinement

Data Reification Vs. Data Refinement

Data reification (stepwise refinement) involves finding a more concrete representation of the abstract data types used in a formal specification.

Data reification is the terminology of the Vienna Development Method (VDM) that most other people would call data refinement. An example is taking a step towards an implementation by replacing a data representation without a counterpart in the intended implementation language, such as sets, by one that does have a counterpart (such as maps with fixed domains that can be implemented by arrays), or at least one that is closer to having a counterpart, such as sequences. The VDM community prefers the word "reification" over "refinement", as the process has more to do with concretising an idea than with refining it.

For similar usages, see Reification (linguistics).

Read more about this topic:  Reification (computer Science)

Famous quotes containing the words data and/or refinement:

    This city is neither a jungle nor the moon.... In long shot: a cosmic smudge, a conglomerate of bleeding energies. Close up, it is a fairly legible printed circuit, a transistorized labyrinth of beastly tracks, a data bank for asthmatic voice-prints.
    Susan Sontag (b. 1933)

    Perhaps our own woods and fields,—in the best wooded towns, where we need not quarrel about the huckleberries,—with the primitive swamps scattered here and there in their midst, but not prevailing over them, are the perfection of parks and groves, gardens, arbors, paths, vistas, and landscapes. They are the natural consequence of what art and refinement we as a people have.... Or, I would rather say, such were our groves twenty years ago.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)