What Top-Level Software Engineers Tackle after Learning Formal Methods: Experiences from the Top SE Project

Authors:
Fuyuki Ishikawa;Kenji Taguchi;Nobukazu Yoshioka;Shinichi Honiden
Affiliations:
GRACE Center, National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo, Japan;GRACE Center, National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo, Japan;GRACE Center, National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo, Japan;GRACE Center, National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo, Japan and Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
Venue:
TFM '09 Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Teaching Formal Methods
Year:
2009

Citing 7
Cited 0

Collaborations: Closing the Industry-Academia Gap

IEEE Software
The Z/EVES System

ZUM '97 Proceedings of the 10th International Conference of Z Users on The Z Formal Specification Notation
Top SE: Educating Superarchitects Who Can Apply Software Engineering Tools to Practical Development in Japan

ICSE '07 Proceedings of the 29th international conference on Software Engineering
Formal specification generator for KAOS: model transformation approach to generate formal specifications from KAOS requirements models

Proceedings of the twenty-second IEEE/ACM international conference on Automated software engineering
Automatic Extraction and Verification of Page Transitions in aWeb Application

APSEC '07 Proceedings of the 14th Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference
Application of a Formal Specification Language in the Development of the "Mobile FeliCa" IC Chip Firmware for Embedding in Mobile Phone

FM '08 Proceedings of the 15th international symposium on Formal Methods
Model Checking Process with Goal Oriented Requirements Analysis

APSEC '08 Proceedings of the 2008 15th Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

In order to make practical use of formal methods, it is not sufficient for engineers to obtain general, fundamental knowledge of the methods and tools. Actually, it is also necessary for them to carefully consider their own contexts and determine adequate approaches to their own problems. Specifically, engineers need to choose adequate methods and tools, determine their usage strategies, and even customize or extend them for their effective and efficient use. Regarding the point, this paper reports and discusses experiences on education of formal methods in the Top SE program targeting software engineers in the industry. The program involves education of a variety of scientific methods and tools with group exercises on practical problems, allowing students to compare different approaches while understanding common principles. In addition, the program involves graduation studies where each student identifies and tackles their own problems. Statistics on problem settings in the graduation studies provide interesting insights into what top-level engineers tackles after learning formal methods.