In computer science, specifically software engineering, formal methods are a particular kind of mathematically based techniques for the specification, development and verification of software and hardware systems. The use of formal methods for software and hardware design is motivated by the expectation that, as in other engineering disciplines, performing appropriate mathematical analysis can contribute to the reliability and robustness of a design.
Formal methods are best described as the application of a fairly broad variety of theoretical computer science fundamentals, in particular logic calculi, formal languages, automata theory, and program semantics, but also type systems and algebraic data types to problems in software and hardware specification and verification.
Read more about Formal Methods: Taxonomy, Criticisms, Formal Methods and Notations
Famous quotes containing the words formal and/or methods:
“The bed is now as public as the dinner table and governed by the same rules of formal confrontation.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“The methods by which a trade union can alone act, are necessarily destructive; its organization is necessarily tyrannical.”
—Henry George (1839–1897)