Gleirscher, Mario orcid.org/0000-0002-9445-6863 and Marmsoler, Diego (2020) Formal Methods in Dependable Systems Engineering:A Survey of Professionals from Europe and North America. Empirical Software Engineering. ISSN 1382-3256
Abstract
Context: Formal methods (FMs) have been around for a while, still being unclear how to leverage their benefits, overcome their challenges, and set new directions for their improvement towards a more successful transfer into practice. Objective: We study the use of formal methods in mission-critical software domains, examining industrial and academic views. Method: We perform a cross-sectional on-line survey. Results: Our results indicate an increased intent to apply FMs in industry, suggesting a positively perceived usefulness. But the results also indicate a negatively perceived ease of use. Scalability, skills, and education seem to be among the key challenges to support this intent. Conclusions: We present the largest study of this kind so far (N = 216), and our observations provide valuable insights, highlighting directions for future theoretical and empirical research of formal methods. Our findings are strongly coherent with earlier observations by Austin and Parkin (1993).
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2020 |
Keywords: | Formal methods,Empirical research,On-line survey,Usage,Usefulness,Practical challenges,Research transfer,Software engineering education & training |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Computer Science (York) |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 14 Aug 2019 14:30 |
Last Modified: | 08 Feb 2025 00:39 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-020-09836-5 |
Status: | Published online |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1007/s10664-020-09836-5 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:149642 |