Position paper: the science of deep specification
Name
deepspec_rev1 (002).pdf
Description
Accepted version
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291.92 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Appel, Andrew W.
Beringer, Lennart
Chlipala, Adam
Pierce, Benjamin C.
Shao, Zhong
Weirich, Stephanie
Zdancewic, Steve
Date Issued
September 2017
Journal
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A
Publisher
The Royal Society
Citation
Appel, Andrew W. et al. "Position paper: the science of deep specification." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 375, 2104: 20160331 © 2017 The Author(s)
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
We introduce our efforts within the project ‘The science of deep specification’ to work out the key formal underpinnings of industrial-scale formal specifications of software and hardware components, anticipating a world where large verified systems are routinely built out of smaller verified components that are also used by many other projects. We identify an important class of specification that has already been used in a few experiments that connect strong component-correctness theorems across the work of different teams. To help popularize the unique advantages of that style, we dub it deep specification, and we say that it encompasses specifications that are rich, two-sided, formal and live (terms that we define in the article). Our core team is developing a proof-of-concept system (based on the Coq proof assistant) whose specification and verification work is divided across largely decoupled subteams at our four institutions, encompassing hardware microarchitecture, compilers, operating systems and applications, along with cross-cutting principles and tools for effective specification. We also aim to catalyse interest in the approach, not just by basic researchers but also by users in industry. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Verified trustworthy software systems’.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2016.0331
