Abstract
A verifying compiler is one that proves mechanically that a program is correct before allowing it to be run. Correctness of a program is defined by placing assertions at strategic points in the program text, particularly at the interfaces between its components. From recent enquiries among software developers at Microsoft, I have discovered that assertions are already used widely in program development practice. Their main rôle is as test oracles, to detect programming errors as close as possible to their place of occurrence. Further progress in reliable software engineering is currently supported by programmer productivity tools. I conjecture that these will be developed to exploit assertions of various kinds in various ways at all stages in program development. Eventually assertions will be used more widely for their original purpose of establishing important aspects of the correctness of large programs. However, the construction of a fully verifying compiler remains as a long-term challenge for twenty-first century Computing Science.
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Hoare, T. (2004). Towards the Verifying Compiler. In: Owe, O., Krogdahl, S., Lyche, T. (eds) From Object-Orientation to Formal Methods. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2635. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-39993-3_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-39993-3_8
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