Verifying Component-Based Software: Deep Mathematics or Simple Bookkeeping?

Anecdotal experience constructing proofs of correctness of code built from reusable software components reveals that they tend to be relatively trivial bookkeeping exercises: they rarely require a substantive mathematical deduction. A careful empirical analysis of hundreds of verification conditions (VCs) for a library of component-client code shows the level of sophistication each proof requires, and suggests how to use the results to characterize a notion of mathematical “obviousness.”