Enabling requirements-based programming for highly-dependable complex parallel and distributed systems

The manual application of formal methods in system specification has produced successes, but in the end, despite any claims and assertions by practitioners, there is no provable relationship between a manually derived system specification or formal model and the customer's original requirements. Complex parallel and distributed systems present the worst case implications for today's dearth of viable approaches for achieving system dependability. No avenue other than formal methods constitutes a serious contender for resolving the problem, and so recognition of requirements-based programming has come at a critical juncture. We describe a new, NASA-developed automated requirements-based programming method that can be applied to certain classes of systems, including complex parallel and distributed systems, to achieve a high degree of dependability.