TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2004

Kent Beck, Three Rivers Institute

Matthias Felleisen, Northeastern University

Anthony Hall, Praxis Critical Systems

Moderators: Peter Lee, Jon Pincus

The focus of this panel is to understand the cost-effectiveness of current software engineering techniques as they relate to dependability and certification.

• What is the evidence for the cost-effectiveness of various software engineering techniques, either today or looking toward the future? Ideally, this would focus on the techniques’ roles in producing dependable software; however, strong evidence for cost-effectiveness in other domains is also interesting.

• To the extent that evidence is currently limited, what kind of investigation could lead to strengthening it in the future?

• Are there particularly promising directions that can lead to particular software engineering techniques becoming more cost-effective for creating dependable software?

David Dill, Stanford University

Douglas Jones, University of Iowa

Avi Rubin, Johns Hopkins University

Ted Selker, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Moderators: Reed Gardner, Daniel Jackson

The focus of this panel is to explore a particular application domain within the context of certification, dependability, and regulation.

• What role does software play in voting? How crucial is it? Does it make things worse or better?

• What properties of the software might be certified? What current approaches might help?

• What would the certification process, if any, be? Who would do it? What credibility would it have? Who has to be trusted? What ulterior motives are at play?

• With respect to issues of dependability and certification, is this case study typical, or unique in some ways?

Group Brainstorm

Moderator: Daniel Jackson

What are the important questions that have come out of this workshop that the committee should address in the rest of its study?