Abstract

Abstract

Abstract
In a broad sense, computing is an area of knowledge from which a popular and efSective technology emerged long before a solid, specific, scientific methodology, let alone formal foundations, had been put forward. This might explain some of the weaknesses in the software industv, on the one hand, as well as an excessively technology-oriented view which dominates computer science training at pre-university and even undergraduate teaching, on the other. Modelling, understood as the ability to choose the right abstractions for a problem domain, is consensually recognised as essential for the development of true engineering skills in this area, as it is in all other engineering disciplines. But, how can the basic problemsolving strategy, one gets used to from school physics: understand the problem, build a mathematical model, reason within the model, calculate a solution, be taken (and taught) as the standard way of dealing with software design problems? This paper addresses this question, illustrating and discussing the interplay between modelling and reasoning. © 2007 Woodhead Publishing Limited.

Abstract

Abstract

Abstract
Despite its huge success and increasing incorporation in complex, industrial-strength applications, open source software, by the very nature of its open, unconventional, distributed development model, is hard to assess and certify in an effective, sound and independent way. This makes its use and integration within safety or security-critical systems, a risk. And, simultaneously an opportunity and a challenge for rigourous, mathematically based, methods which aim at pushing software analysis and development to the level of a mature engineering discipline. This paper discusses such a challenge and proposes a number of ways in which open source development may benefit from the whole patrimony of formal methods.