How to write correct programs and know it

  • Authors:
  • Harlan D. Mills

  • Affiliations:
  • Federal Systems Division, International Business Machines Corporation, Gaithersburg, Maryland

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the international conference on Reliable software
  • Year:
  • 1975

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

There is no foolproof way to ever know that you have found the last error in a program. So the best way to acquire confidence that a program has no errors is never to find the first one, no matter how much it is tested and used. It is an old myth that programming must be an error-prone, cut-and-try process of frustration and anxiety. The new reality is that you can learn to consistently write programs which are error free in their debugging and subsequent use. This new reality is founded in the ideas of structured programming and program correctness, which not only provide a systematic approach to programming but also motivate a high degree of concentration and precision in the coding subprocess.