Correct or usable? the limits of traditional verification (impact paper award)

Abstract

Since our work on verification sixteen years ago, our views of the role of verification, and the centrality of correctness, have evolved. In our presentation, we’ll talk about some of our concerns about the limitations of this kind of technology, including: usability as a key factor; the unknowable properties of the environment; and the inadequacy of specifications as a means of capturing users’ desires. We’ll describe two approaches we’re currently working on to mitigate these concerns — (1) moving to higher level abstractions with correctness by construction and (2) focusing on the conceptual structure of applications — and will argue that, combined with traditional verification tools, these offer the possibility of applications that are both usable and correct.