1. A general-purpose, computer-implemented translator (10) for translating a specification for a system, having system components, a behavior description for each component, and a template therefor, from an initial representation thereof into another representation of the system comprising: a computer-implemented extraction module (30, 32) for extracting behavior descriptions from the specification; a computer-implemented analysis module (34) including one or more behavior-specific translators (36, 38, 40, 46, 50, 52) for reducing the behavior description to a mathematical depiction of the components of the system; and at least one computer-implemented synthesis module (42, 54) for transforming said mathematical depiction into another representation of the system.