MASCOT Acronym for modular approach to software construction operation and test. A method for designing and building software, aimed at real-time embedded systems and originally devised by Ken Jackson and Hugo Simpson at the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment, UK.

MASCOT comprises a design method, a diagrammatic and textual notation, and a model environment supporting the building, testing, and execution of systems. It may be applied to both single processor and distributed multiprocessor systems.

The design method is based upon identifying the dataflow through the system, and the data accumulation within the system. The design consists of concurrent active components (activities) and passive components (intercommunication data areas, of which pools and channels are special cases), possibly arranged hierarchically.

The notation provides for describing software components and the interfaces between them, together with a set of rules for assembling and testing them. It shows the network of intercommunicating processes, possibly in a hierarchy. In general, there is equivalence between the components of the design and the modules of the implementation.

MASCOT was devised to be language-independent. The original tools to support MASCOT were for use with CORAL; tools are now available for use with Pascal and Ada. MASCOT is compatible with the CORE requirements method and is an integral part of DORIS.

mas·cot / ˈmasˌkät; -kət/ • n. a person or thing that is supposed to bring good luck or that is used to symbolize a particular event or organization: the squadron's mascot was a young lion cub. ORIGIN: late 19th cent.: from French mascotte, from modern Provençal mascotto, feminine diminutive ofmasco ‘witch.’

mascot thing supposed to bring good luck. XIX. — F. mascotte — modPr. mascotto, fem. of mascot, dim. of masco witch.