Big Brother?

Writing software is a tricky business, particularly if the code being produced is intended for application in a safety critical environment. In these applications, you don’t want the code to crash when it encounters unexpected conditions. So those companies developing software for safety critical and similar applications are increasing turning to tools which allow them to inspect the code closely. One such company is LDRA, whose lead FAE Ian Harry explained: “We’re not in the development industry, we’re in the business of testing source code for safety critical applications.” LDRA has been in existence since the mid 1970s, when it was involved in software for controlling nuclear power stations. Since then, said Harry, the company has developed an ‘end to end’ product line. “At the front end,” he noted, “there’s requirements tracking that allow people testing code or systems to track requirements right down to the tests they plan to run on that code.” Harry says the company’s ‘engine’ is LDRA Testbed. “It’s a static analysis engine,” he continued, “that runs through the code and tells people what’s happening. They will often say they’re doing that already, but our tools do it better and to a much deeper level.”