Deductive Software Verification: From Pen-and-Paper Proofs to Industrial Tools

Deductive software verification aims at formally verifying that all possible behaviors of a given program satisfy formally defined, possibly complex properties, where the verification process is based on logical inference. We follow the trajectory of the field from its inception in the late 1960s via its current state to its promises for the future, from pen-and-paper proofs for programs written in small, idealized languages to highly automated proofs of complex library or system code written in mainstream languages. We take stock of the state-of-art and give a list of the most important challenges for the further development of the field of deductive software verification.