Formal Methods: Present and Future,
Abstract
It is widely accepted that industrial software production has a number of associated difficulties and problems. These include the following: 1) The proportion of system costs due to software has increased dramatically over the last 20 years and is continuing t do so. This poses major problems for technical management who are frequently qualified and experienced in more traditional engineering discipline; 2) A major skill shortage exists in software and is expected to continue to increase; 3) The quality of delivered software is frequently inadequate in performance and reliability; 4) Software projects are subject to frequent cost and timescale over-runs. The causes are usually inadequate engineering methods to handle the complexity of systems and inadequate project management techniques; and 5) There is at present relatively little underlying theory or generally accepted good practice on which to base an software engineering approach. As a consequence, software systems tend to be crafted rather than engineered. These (and related) problems have by now received world-wide recognition. A number of major initiatives have consequently been instituted to address these issues, for example, the Alvey Software Engineering programme and the ESPRIT Software Technology programme.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 10, 1985
- Accession Number
- ADP005562
Entities
People
- M. I. Jackson