In any serious engineering discipline, it would be unthinkable to construct a large system without having a precise notion of what is to be built and without verifying how the system is expected to function. Software engineering is no different in this respect.

Formal methods involve the use of mathematical notation and calculus in software development; such methods are difficult to apply to large-scale systems with practical constraints (e.g., limited developer skills, time and budget restrictions, changing requirements). Here Liu claims that formal engineering methods may bridge...