Traditionally, the methodologies for the design of embedded systems have evolved by incorporating ad-hoc knowledge, rather than following formal procedures derived by academia. This is probably because of the close relationship between an embedded system and the environment it is embedded in, as pointed out by Lee [1]. Such dependency has a strong influence over the system being designed, making it harder to derive generic design methodologies. But judging by its title, the work by Kienhuis, Deprettere, van der Wolf, and Vissers tries to do exactly that.

However, the readers fear of yet another formal methodology, doomed to non-acceptance by the design community, disappears after the first reading. Apart from a few definitions that were explicitly formalized, the text actually summarizes most of the current methodologies for embedded systems design. No radical breakthroughs are included, which is good in this case. Instead of that, the authors present a well-organized design approach, built on top of their academic and industrial experiences. They also rely on the important contributions of other research groups, such as those at UC Berkeley and UC Irvine, achieving a good common denominator for the state-of-the-art on this field.

The only negative remark is related to the name, which has already been used to denominate a well-established design process scheme created by Gajski and Kuhn two decades ago [2].