Nice title, although I don't think the proposed solution (formal proof methods) is the answer. My own view is that building software is more of a design process

Nice title, although I don't think the proposed solution (formal proof methods) is the answer. My own view is that building software is more of a design process than an engineering process, for the simple reason that software rarely has the kind of fixed requirements that make engineering solutions possible. Most software is constantly evolving and the factors that make it possible to evolve well include things like conceptual clarity and modularity, about which formal methods have nothing to say. There was a movement around 20 years ago to establish a field of practice called"software design" but I don't think it went anywhere. The problems remain the same though. http://hci.stanford.edu/publications/bds/ http://hci.stanford.edu/publications/bds/