Page 156 - DCAP305_PRINCIPLES_OF_SOFTWARE_ENGINEERING

Principles of Software Engineering

Notes The difference between verification and validation (V&V) is illustrated in Figure 7.1.

Figure 7.1: Relation between Verification and Validation

The definitions given above are drawn through some extension of the definitions of IEEE 1012
standard on the processes of verification and validation. In the standard software engineering
glossary IEEE 610.12 of 1990, the definition of verification is nearly the same but the definition
of validation is different - it is said there that validation must check if the result software
corresponds to the requirements set to it in the beginning of the development process. In this
case, validation would be an instance of verification but it is not mentioned anywhere in literature
on software engineering, and this is the reason, together with the fact that this definition was
corrected in IEEE 1012 of 2004, that it should be considered incorrect. This phrase by B. Boehm
which is used very frequently.
Verification answers the question “Are we making the product properly?” while validation -
“Are we making a proper product?” also contributes to the confusion because its aphoristic
character, unfortunately, combines with ambiguity. But multiple works of allow us to think
that he meant by verification and validation nearly the same notions that were defined. The
described discrepancies can be traced in the content of software engineering standards. Thus,
ISO standards consider testing a kind of validation but not verification and it seems to result
from sticking to the incorrect definition of the standard glossary.

7.1 Meaning of Verification

Verification is the process of difficult like set of documents, plans, specifications and requirements.
The process of evaluating work-products (not the actual final product) of a development phase
to determine whether they meet the specified requirements for that phase. This is an preliminary
report on the use of model-based verification techniques within software development and
upgrade practices. It presents the specific activities and everyday job that are required of
engineers who use the model-based confirmation paradigm and describes proposed approaches
for integrating model-based verification into an organization’s software engineering practices.
The approaches outlined in this report are preliminary concepts for the integration of model
building and analysis techniques into software engineering review and inspection practices. These
techniques are presented as both practices within peer review processes and as autonomous

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