James H. Fetzer
Abstract
The notion of program verification appears to trade upon an equivocation. Algorithms, as logical structures, are appropriate subjects for deductive verification. Programs, as causal models of those structures, are not. The success of program verification as a generally applicable and completely reliable method for guaranteeing program performance is not even a theoretical possibility.
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Index Terms
- Program verification: the very idea
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Reviews
Tudor Balanescu
Almost a decade after the publication of DeMillo, Lipton, and Perlis's paper [1], Fetzer again investigates the limitations of program verification methods when applied to real-world systems. He reconsiders the main points expressed in that paper and in a series of letters to the editor of the Communications of the ACM, and provides them with better support. The basic idea of this paper is that algorithms, as logical structures, are appropriate subjects for deductive verification, whereas programs, as causal models of those structures, are not. The author puts forth convincing arguments in a provocative style. This paper may revive the controversy over the formal approach to software verification.
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