Evaluating Embedded-Software Specifications -- Quantitative and Structured Assessment of Declarative Interface Descriptions

Abstract

Relying on implementations in verification results in specifications and implementations that do not lend themselves well to reuse. Moreover, conventional verification tells engineers rather little about actual software or design quality ("Trust me, it's good."). We regard ease of formal specification, quality assessment and specification reuse, particularly in the form of declarative specifications, to be decisive factors in furthering the application of formal methods in software development. We aim to provide new, tool-supported techniques combining, and enabling, practical specification formalisms, implementationless model checking of structured specifications and complex measures for specification quality.