Lambda the Ultimate

Mike Barnett, Manuel Fahndrich, K. Rustan M. Leino, Peter Muller, Wolfram Schulte, and Herman Venter, Specification and Verification: The Spec# Experience" Preprint of an article appearing in the June 2011 CACM.

CACM tagline: Can a programming language really help programmers write better programs?

Spec# is a programming system that facilitates the development of correct software. The Spec# language extends C# with contracts that allow programmers to express their design intent in the code. The Spec# tool suite consists of a compiler that emits run-time checks for contracts, a static program verifier that attempts to mathematically prove the correctness of programs, and an integration into the Visual Studio development environment. Spec# shows how contracts and verifiers can be integrated seamlessly into the software development process. This paper reflects on the six-year history of the Spec# project, scientific contributions it has made, remaining challenges for tools that seek to establish program correctness, and prospects of incorporating verification into everyday software engineering.

Spec# is, in some ways, quite similar to JML+ESC/Java2. But Spec# is a language rather than a set of annotations, which allows it to incorporate features such as a non-null type system and a very tight integration with the IDE.

Spec# was previously mentioned on LtU back in 2005.