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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: EP/C525000/1
Title: Formally-based tool support for Erlang development
Principal Investigator: Derrick, Professor J
Other Investigators:
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Erlang Training and Consulting T-mobile (uk) Ltd
Department: Computer Science
Organisation: University of Sheffield
Scheme: Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts: 01 October 2005 Ends: 31 March 2009 Value (£): 225,425
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Fundamentals of Computing
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
Information Technologies
Related Grants:
EP/C524969/1
Panel History:  
Summary on Grant Application Form
The programming language Erlang has been designed for use in systems which are located in more than one place (i.e., distributed) and for systems which cannot be allowed to fail (i.e., they are fault tolerant). Erlang has the unique combination of simplicity of program expression (because of the language's high-level features) and efficiency of program code, and benefits from an extensive library of useful components (i.e., a set of design patterns) which together allow programmers to build fail-safe systems quickly and effectively.Erlang can be counted on as a significant success, having been used in a variety of business critical applications. However, while Erlang's characteristics have been used to shorten development time, ensuring the reliability of systems requires extensive testing and verification. This increases reliability, but it does so at the expense of delivery time.Our aim is to tackle this issue. We will do this by investigating techniques and tools which will allow us to: check that the code does the things we expect it to do (model checking strand); make it possible to change the code and be able to check whether pre-defined properties still hold (refactoring strand); and help us test programs written using Erlang more effectively (testing strand).To do this work we will employ two RAs and a PhD student as follows:- 15' RA: working on model checking, based at Sheffield-2 nd RA: working on refactoring, based at Kent- PhD student: working on testing, based at SheffieldThe two RAs are named as recognised researchers, and all the staff have a long history of both informal and formal collaboration. Keywords: Erlang, functional programming, refactoring, process algebras, model checking, testing.
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Organisation Website: http://www.shef.ac.uk