Realising the benefits of formal methods

Abstract

The web site for this conference states that: "The challenge now is to achieve general acceptance of formal methods as a part of industrial development of high quality systems, particularly trusted systems." We are all going to be discussing How to achieve this, but before that we should maybe ask the other questions: What are the real benefits of formal methods and Why should we care about them? When and Where should we expect to use them, and Who should be involved? I will suggest some answers to those questions and then describe some ways that the benefits are being realised in practice, and what I think needs to happen for them to become more widespread. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.