Nothing is Certain but Doubt and Tests

TL;DR

This paper discusses how software safety standards can be made testable by framing uncertainty and assurance levels as an uncertainty gradient, enabling empirical evaluation of standards' effectiveness.

Contribution

It introduces an argument-based reasoning method to assess and compare software safety standards through experimental testing.

Findings

Standards can be evaluated by their ability to reduce uncertainty.

An uncertainty gradient can quantify assurance levels.

The proposed method supports empirical testing of standards.

Abstract

Effective software safety standards will contribute to confidence, or assurance, in the safety of the systems in which the software is used. It is infeasible to demonstrate a correlation between standards and accidents, but there is an alternative view that makes standards "testable". Software projects are subject to uncertainty; good standards reduce uncertainty more than poor ones. Similarly assurance or integrity levels in standards should define an uncertainty gradient. The paper proposes an argument -based method of reasoning about uncertainty that can be used as a basis for conducting experiments (tests) to evaluate standards.