Evaluation of Safety-Critical Software Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Evaluation of Safety-Critical Software - Essay Example To that end, there were several attempts to measure the dependability of safety-critical software. Similarly, Harlan Mills and his colleagues had developed a process called â€Å"clean room† that utilized independent testing groups to act as end users of programmable devices and were said to generate reliable results than the common practice of software professionals who performed a series of carefully planned tests to measure the reliability of their owned inventions. All things considered, an exhaustive mathematical test, not only based on intuitive reasoning, must be conducted to ensure the trustworthiness of safety-critical software. Programmable computers are tools that provide convenience to the end users, however, devices that are controlled by safety-critical software can threaten lives of people, as well. To that end, an extreme discipline in design in the making is needed. Data and related information should be laid out in a way that it could be easily comprehended by an independent group of testers. That is to say that â€Å"clean room† as developed by Harlan Mills and company must be applied to prevent unbiased results. Human errors often occurred, especially when software professionals would try to self-assist their own works. With this in mind, why engineers had chosen software instead of hardware? In the first place, software components were less expensive than hard-wired logic. These components were massed produced. Secondly, logic, in theory, that was implemented on software could be easily changed than of the one implemented on the hard-wired device. Lastly, software is more flexible than of non-computerized system. For instance, the modern computer technology could provide more information to the end users in a more convenient manner. Less space and power were needed to produce this information.