Making formal methods practical

Despite their potential, formal methods have had difficulty gaining acceptance in the industrial sector. Some complaints are based on supposed impracticality: many consider formal methods to be an approach to system specification and analysis that requires a large learning time. Contributing to this scepticism is the fact that some types of formal methods have not yet been proven to handle systems of realistic complexity. To learn more about how to design formal specification languages that can be used for complex systems and require minimal training, we developed a formal specification of an English language specification of the vertical flight control system similar to that found in the MD-11. This paper describes the lessons learned from this experience.