Developing high quality software with formal methods: What else is needed?

Abstract

In recent years, many formal methods have been proposed for improving software quality. These include new specification and modeling languages, whose purpose is to precisely describe the required software behavior at a high level of abstraction, and formal verification techniques, such as model checking and theorem proving, for mechanically proving or refuting critical properties of the software. Unfortunately, while promising, these methods are rarely used in software practice. This paper describes improvements in languages, specifications and models, code quality, and code verification techniques that could, along with existing formal methods, play a major role in improving software quality. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2005.