Over the last two years, we have demonstrated the feasibility of applying category-theoretic methods in specifying, synthesizing, and maintaining industrial strength software systems. We have been using a first-of-its-kind tool for this purpose. Kestrel's Specware/sup TM/ software development system. In this paper, we describe our experiences and give an industrial perspective on what is needed to make this technology have broader appeal to industry. Our overall impression is that the technology does work for industrial strength applications, but that it needs additional work to make it more usable. We believe this work marks a turning point in the use of mathematically rigorous approaches to industrial strength software development and maintenance. It is interesting to note that when this technology is applied to software systems whose outputs are designs for airplane parts, the design rationale that is captured is not only software engineering design rationale, but also design rationale from other engineering disciplines (e.g., mechanical, material, manufacturing, etc.). This suggests the technology provides an approach to general systems engineering that enables one to structure and reuse engineering knowledge broadly.

This paper briefly describes our initial experiences in applied research of formal approaches to the generation and maintenance of software systems supporting structural engineering tasks. We describe the business context giving rise to this activity, and give an example of the type of engineering problem we have focused on. We briefly describe our approach to software generation and maintenance, and point out the challenges that we appear to face in transferring this technology into actual practice.

Article Test data generation and feasible path analysis Share on Authors: Robert Jasper The Boeing Co. The Boeing Co.View Profile , Mike Brennan The Boeing Co. The Boeing Co.View Profile , Keith Williamson The Boeing Co. The Boeing Co.View Profile , Bill Currier The Boeing Co. The Boeing Co.View Profile , David Zimmerman Z-Access Consulting Z-Access ConsultingView Profile Authors Info & Claims ISSTA '94: Proceedings of the 1994 ACM SIGSOFT international symposium on Software testing and analysisAugust 1994 Pages 95–107https://doi.org/10.1145/186258.187150Online:01 August 1994Publication History 47citation992DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations47Total Downloads992Last 12 Months4Last 6 weeks0 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteGet Access