Institutions, property-aware programming and testing
Magne Haveraaen · 2007
The institution notion is a general model theoretic framework, explaining how specifications (algebraic axioms) relate to models (mathematical models or even software constructions) in a formalism-independent manner. There is a large set of institution-independent structuring mechanisms for specifications. Property aware programming, as e.g. supported by concepts in C++0X, provides algebraic axioms as part of the code to ensure correctness of generic software composition. Testing is very important for the validation of software, but tests are all too often developed on an ad hoc basis.