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From: "Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>
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Subject: Re: ADA Popularity Discussion Request
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 18:28:49 -0500
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"jayessay" <nospam@foo.com> wrote in message
news:m3brgidrzb.fsf@rigel.goldenthreadtech.com...
...
> Proving things above the fairly simple level in software falls victim
> to the halting problem.  The specifications (even very good ones) are
> typically not rigorous enough to _prove_ any conformance either.
> There are, of course, exceptions.

The SPARK people claim to have had good luck in proving Ada software doesn't
have run-time errors and meets its specifications. See www.sparkada.com.

I'd expect that writing the specifications would be interesting. But it
would at least seem a useful technique to eliminate errors in smaller
subprograms, so that testing can be focused on the whole system (where you
have a much better chance of doing it in a reproducible fashion). After all,
creating good reusable tests is expensive, no matter what they're testing
(and non-reusable tests are close to worthless).

                                       Randy.