Cleanroom Software Development: An Empirical Evaluation

The Cleanroom software development approach is intended to produce highly reliable software by integrating formal methods for specification and design, nonexecution-based program development, and statistically based independent testing. In an empirical study, 15 three-person teams developed versions of the same software system (800-2300 source lines); ten teams applied Cleanroom, while five applied a more traditional approach. This analysis characterizes the effect of Cleanroom on the delivered product, the software development process, and the developers.