Software engineering standards: the ‘formal methods debate’ in the uk

This paper traces the evolution of two standards, Def Stan 00-55 and 00-56, regualtin the identification and productin of safety-critical software for defence applications, issued by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) as interim standards in 1991. The standards—00-55, in particular—have become an important forum for articulating the interests of those who work in the UK safety-critical software engineering field; a debate which has largely revolved around the intergral role 00-55 demands for formal methods of sofware development for safety-critical functions or components. In recounting the stor of their gestation within the MoD during the early 1980s; their controversial release in draft form in 1989; and their subsequent second release as interim standards in 1991, the aim has been to illuminate some of the current ‘politics’ of formal methods of software production, and to consider how the standards are reshaping the discipline of software engineering.