Mapping Formal Methods to Extreme Programming (XP) –A Futuristic Approach

Abstract

The Agile methodologies have been gaining popularity for last few years. This approach satisfies the variety of customer needs in a
better way and requirements as compared to the traditional software development methodologies. It also accepts changes in requirements
conveniently. Agile Extreme Programming (XP) is frequently used as it provides an effective project engineering ability. However, there are
some drawbacks of XP. Some projects can suffer from the lack of documentation. Sometimes it poses risks for life critical systems and a
general de-emphasis on architecture may be observed. In the practical field, there is a need to improve XP while developing safety critical
systems. For such situations, a futuristic approach is introduced in this research work by combining Formal Methods (FMs) with XP. It is a
promising contract to combine both these techniques. However if combined in a fruitful way they can give the best of both XP and FMs. By
using this approach XP can be used for the safety critical systems without any risk and at the same time cost is much reduced. In this paper a
Formal Extreme Programming (FXP) model is introduced. In this model “Software Cost Reduction” (SCR) is applied at the initial stage to
specify the requirements formally. A high level FM, Algebraic Specification will be written before coding. Algebraic specification gives
formal description of requirements in a mathematical way. The Design by Contract (DbC) is mapped conditionally at the testing phase for
complex systems. A survey through questionnaire is conducted by professionals of software industry.