Challenges in the utilization of formal methods

摘要

Despite the established benefits of formal methods, they remainpoorly accepted by industrial software developers. This paper examines the issues surrounding the use of formal methods in industrial software development. It is argued that the reason for their limited use is that the introduction of formalism into software development is a more complex undertaking than it appears to be. This idea is explored in three areas: the software lifecycle; software dependability analysis; and development tools and environments. It is shown that many capabilities must be present in order for formal methods to fit into the complete software lifecycle, that the results of formal methods are dificult to use in software dependability analysis, and that the development of tools to support formal methods comprehensively is a difficult undertaking.