Programming Research Group Technical Report TR-7-94

Jonathan P Bowen and Michael G Hinchey (University of Cambridge)

June 1994, 19pp.

For whatever reason, formal methods remain one of the more contentious techniques in industrial software engineering. Despite some improvement in the uptake of formal methods, it is still the case that the vast majority of potential users of formal methods fail to become actual users. A paper by Anthony Hall in 1990 examined a number of `myths' concerning formal methods, assumed by some to be valid. This paper considers a few more beliefs held by many and presents some counter examples.