Is Code Verification Finally Good Enough?

Jonathan asks: "As someone who has been following the development of software verification technology, a recent trend has intrigued me. It seems that the formal method people have finally come down off their high horse and are offering code verification as just another tool. This approach shows up in recent Java and C# based code verification tools that aren't aimed at 'proving correctness' so much as finding potential errors. Now it seems that such an approach is beginning to find its way into XP methods[pdf] as another verification tool to supplement unit tests. Given the current speed and effectiveness of tools like the Spec# verifier, is code verification via automated theorem proving finally going to make its way into the mainstream?"

Comments

Re:No :)

[Control Group]

The steps in his methodology are counter-intuitive and therefore stupid

I agree with your general statement, but this isn't good evidence. Plenty of things are counterintuitive, yet correct and useful.

I present exhibit A: the whole of statistics. It is counterintuitive that after the tenth straight "heads" result, the eleventh flip still has even odds of coming up heads - despite the fact that the odds of eleven straight flips coming up heads are 2048:1. It is counterintuitive that you should always switch doors in the Monty Hall problem.

Or, if you're scientifically minded, I give you relativity. It is counterintuitive that no matter how fast you're moving relative to a light source, the speed of the light from your point of view will never change.

It is counterintuitive that gravity causes hot air balloons to rise, or that the way to escape Earth orbit is to accelerate along it, not away from Earth.

Counterintuitive doesn't necessarily mean that something's incorrect.