Why is software always crashing?

By Achim D. Brucker.

In our daily life, we are - sad but true - used to insecure, crashing, or otherwise non-working computer systems. Gerald Weinberg, a American computer scientist, once said: "If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization." Is building correct and secure programs really so hard that humans cannot master this tasks or are we just careless when implementing programs? In this presentation, we will explore the difficulties of implementing correct computer programs and learn techniques for building secure and reliable programs - including ways for mathematically proving the absence of certain types of program faults.

Please cite this work as follows:
A. D. Brucker, “Why is software always crashing?” presented at the Pint of Science, Sheffield, UK, May 16, 2016. Author copy: http://logicalhacking.com/publications/talk-brucker-pint-sw-assurance-2018/

BibTeX
@Unpublished{ talk:brucker:pint-sw-assurance:2018,
  date       = {2016-05-16},
  title      = {Why is software always crashing?},
  author     = {Achim D. Brucker},
  venue      = {Sheffield, UK},
  eventtitle = {{Pint} of {Science}},
  abstract   = {In our daily life, we are - sad but true - used to insecure,
                crashing, or otherwise non-working computer systems. Gerald
                Weinberg, a American computer scientist, once said: "If
                builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs,
                then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy
                civilization." Is building correct and secure programs really
                so hard that humans cannot master this tasks or are we just
                careless when implementing programs? In this presentation, we
                will explore the difficulties of implementing correct computer
                programs and learn techniques for building secure and reliable
                programs - including ways for mathematically proving the
                absence of certain types of program faults.},
  areas      = {software, formal methods},
  note       = {Author copy: \url{http://logicalhacking.com/publications/talk-brucker-pint-sw-assurance-2018/}},
}