Book Description

This volume contains the contributions presented at the International Workshop on Current Trends in Applied Formal Methods organized October 7-9, 1998, in Boppard, Germany. The main objective of the workshop was to draw a map of the key issues facing the practical application of formal methods in industry. This appears to be particularly timely with safety and security issues becoming a real obstacle to industrial software and hardware development. As a consequence, almost all major companies have now set up departments or groups to work with formal methods and many European countries face a severe labour shortage in this new field. Tony Hoare's prediction of the art of software (and hardware) development becoming a proper engineering science with its own body of tools and techniques is now becoming a reality. So the focus of this application oriented workshop was not so much on spe cial academic topics but rather on the many practical aspects of this emerging new technology: verification and validation, and tool support and integration into the software life-cycle. By evaluating the state of the art with respect to industrial applications a discussion emerged among scientists, practising engi neers, and members of regulatory and funding agencies about future needs and developments. This discussion lead to roadmaps with respect to the future of this field, to tool support, and potential application areas and promising market segments. The contributions of the participants from industry as well as from the respective national security bureaus were particularly valuable and highly appreciated.