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A tale of two paradigms: Formal methods and software testing

  • Conference paper
Z User Workshop, Cambridge 1994

Part of the book series: Workshops in Computing ((WORKSHOPS COMP.))

Abstract

There are two camps of software developers: formal methods advocates battling against traditionalist supporters of software testing and assessment metrics. Surely, as Turing observed, we will (must) never do away with testing in some form. But clearly, formal methods cannot be ignored, and must be the basis of quality assurance in some form. Important impacts of specifications on testing are in test selection, test oracles, and analysis of test suites and theoretical results of testing. We examine uses of formal specifications in software testing, particularly, roles of Z specifications in software testing. We also present our unifying framework for specification-based testing, which is founded on Z.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Software Verification Research Centre, The University of Queensland, Queensland, 4072, Australia

    D. Carrington & P. Stocks

Authors
  1. D. Carrington
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  2. P. Stocks
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Programming Research Group, Oxford University Computing Laboratory, Wolfson Buliding, Parks Road, OX1 3QD, Oxford, UK

    J. P. Bowen MA

  2. Praxis Systems plc, 20 Manvers Street, BA1 1PX, Bath, UK

    J. A. Hall MA, DPhil, CEng

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© 1994 British Computer Society

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Carrington, D., Stocks, P. (1994). A tale of two paradigms: Formal methods and software testing. In: Bowen, J.P., Hall, J.A. (eds) Z User Workshop, Cambridge 1994. Workshops in Computing. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3452-7_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3452-7_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-19884-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-3452-7

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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