If you look back in the past you will easily see a clear trend in software development – programs get more and more complex over time. While this is a good thing for most people around the world, this scenario is definitely a nightmare for software developing companies as they have to fight more and more software bugs on a daily basis. This causes problems for both software developers and users and while there are various tools to help, a new solution is clearly needed.
Help seems to come from the tiny and beautiful country of Switzerland – two computer scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne or EPFL) have developed a concept that uses mathematical proofs. More specifically a reliability proof will be achieved through improving inductive reasoning in Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT) solvers. These solvers are next-generation verification programs for software and by making them better through adding the ability to perform automated mathematical induction they will be able to solve more problems in software and hardware verification. This in turn will make software programs more reliable and with fewer bugs.
There is no information on when the new technology will become widely available but if everything goes well we should see the new technology in use in the next few years.
Source: Zdnet.com