[SystemSafety] New paper on MISRA C

[Derek M Jones]

Roberto,

> As the topic of MISRA C surfaces from time to time on this mailing
> list, I would like all members to know that a paper on MISRA C I
> coauthored has just been published by Springer Nature.  It can be
> downloaded free of charge for a limited amount of time from here:

I take it that I have to follow the log in link to access the pdf?

> I think it may help clarifying some of the many misconceptions
> on and around MISRA C.

Your first sentence is a common misconception.
"The MISRA project started in 1990 with the mission of providing 
world-leading best practice guidelines for the safe and secure 
application of both embedded control systems and standalone software."

What actually happened was that MISRA were paid to write a guideline
document, it appeared at the right time and place, and was sufficiently
vague that it tool companies could claim to support it (whatever their
tool did).  I think MISRA were somewhat frustrated that the document
took off, operating as an organization that is paid to do stuff they
suddenly found lots of people asking them to do stuff (e.g., improve
the document) for which they would not receive any income.

The guidelines have improved a lot over time, thanks to a small
group of people outside MISRA putting in a lot of effort.

-- 
Derek M. Jones           Software analysis
tel: +44 (0)1252 520667  blog:shape-of-code.coding-guidelines.com