Work

On the Impact of Formal Verification on Software Development

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Auto-active verifiers like Dafny aim to make formal methods accessible to non-expert users through SMT automation. However, despite the automation and other programmer-friendly features, they remain sparsely used in real-world software development, due to the significant effort required to apply them in practice. We interviewed 14 experienced Dafny users about their experiences using it in large-scale projects. We apply grounded theory to analyze the interviews to systematically identify how auto-active verification impacts software development, and to identify opportunities to simplify the use, and hence, expand the adoption of verification in software development.

Source: Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages

DOI: 10.1145/3763181

Authors: Eric Mugnier, Yuanyuan Zhou, Ranjit Jhala, Michael Coblenz

Institution: University of California San Diego

Language: English

Topic: Logic, programming, and type systems

Subfield: Artificial Intelligence

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: diamond

OpenAlex ID: W4414977244

FWCI: 0.42

Cites: 39

Cited by: 1

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