Cleanroom Software Engineering

Book excerpt: Cleanroom software engineering is a process for developing and certifying high-reliability software. Combining theory-based engineering technologies in project management, incremental development, software specification and design, correctness verification, and statistical quality certification, the Cleanroom process answers today's call for more reliable software and provides methods for more cost-effective software development. Cleanroom originated with Harlan D. Mills, an IBM Fellow and a visionary in software engineering. Written by colleagues of Mills and some of the most experienced developers and practitioners of Cleanroom, Cleanroom Software Engineering provides a roadmap for software management, development, and testing as disciplined engineering practices. This book serves both as an introduction for those new to Cleanroom and as a reference guide for the growing practitioner community. Readers will discover a proven way to raise both quality and productivity in their software-intensive products, while reducing costs. Highlights Explains basic Cleanroom theory Introduces the sequence-based specification method Elaborates the full management, development, and certification process in a Cleanroom Reference Model (CRM) Shows how the Cleanroom process dovetails with the SEI's Capability Maturity Model for Software (CMM) Includes a large case study to illustrate how Cleanroom methods scale up to large projects.