Static Analysis

Question 1

What are the benefits of static analysis?

Answer 1

Much higher coverage
- Able to reason about many possible runs of the program
- Able to reason about incomplete programs

Question 2

What are the drawbacks of static analysis?

Answer 2

• Can only analyse limited properties
• May miss some errors
• Can be time consuming to run

Question 3

What impact does static analysis have on the software development process?

Answer 3

Able to thoroughly check limited but useful properties
- Eliminate categories of errors
- Developers can concentrate on deeper reason as common mistakes will be flagged

Encourages better development practices
- Develop programming models that avoid mistakes in the first place
- Encourages programmers to think about and manifest their assumptions, and use annotations that improve tool precision