On methods and tools for rigorous system design

Full a posteriori verification of the correctness of modern software systems is practically infeasible due to the sheer complexity resulting from their intrinsic concurrent nature. An alternative approach consists of ensuring correctness by construction. We discuss the Rigorous System Design (RSD) approach, which relies on a sequence of semantics-preserving transformations to obtain an implementation of the system from a high-level model while preserving all the properties established along the way. In particular, we highlight some of the key requirements for the feasibility of such an approach, namely availability of (1) methods and tools for the design of correct-by-construction high-level models and (2) definition and proof of the validity of suitable domain-specific abstractions. We summarise the results of the extended versions of seven papers selected among those presented at the 1 st and the 2 nd International Workshops on Methods and Tools for Rigorous System Design (MeTRiD 2018–2019), indicating how they contribute to the advancement of the RSD approach.