Traceability

*'eating your vegetables' for software* James discusses the concept of software traceability tools, used in safety critical software development, and his wishes for an open source version that could give all of the benefits with a minimal amount of fuss. Visit https://sdr-podcast.com/episodes/traceability/ to see the show notes and transcript! This episode is sponsored by Depot https://depot.dev/?utm_source=sdrpodcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=sdr_podcast_may2025: the build acceleration platform that's on a mission to make all builds near instant. [00:00:00] Start [00:02:29] Traceability [00:04:52] Tools for this are outrageously expensive [00:07:45] You already have: docs, code and tests [00:10:20] What if... [00:15:01] It shows all the connections and gaps [00:17:59] This is the Traceability Matrix [00:21:58] It's like eating your vegetables [00:26:23] Once there is a good tool - call to action! # Shownotes - tracing crate https://crates.io/crates/tracing - traceability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traceability, safety-critical system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety-critical_system - "The Pot Roast Principle" https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/thinking-makes-it-so/201402/the-pot-roast-principle - IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOORS Dynamic Object Oriented Requirements System - Ferrocene https://ferrocene.dev/en/, Sphinx documentation generator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphinx_(documentation_generator), WHATWG Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHATWG, Bikeshed https://github.com/speced/bikeshed World Wide Web Consortium 'W3C' https://www.w3.org/, Simon Sapin https://github.com/simonsapin & Manish Goragaokar @manishearth https://github.com/manishearth - Ada programming language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_(programming_language), Cucumber tests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucumber_(software) - Modified condition/decision coverage 'MC/DC' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_condition/decision_coverage, requirements based testing https://www.ptc.com/en/blogs/alm/requirements-based-testing - Typst https://typst.app/ - Traceability matrix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traceability_matrix, Distributed Version Control System DVCS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_version_control, Docs.rs https://docs.rs/ - Ferrocene Traceability Matrix https://public-docs.ferrocene.dev/main/qualification/traceability-matrix.html, Jorge Aparicio @japaric https://github.com/japaric and Pietro Albini https://github.com/pietroalbini at Ferrous Systems https://ferrous-systems.com/ - Postcard serialization format https://docs.rs/postcard/latest/postcard/ & postcard-RPC protocol https://docs.rs/postcard-rpc/latest/postcard_rpc/, current version of the specification https://postcard.jamesmunns.com/, next version of the specification https://postcard.rs/ - rustc compiler https://doc.rust-lang.org/rustc/, Cargo package manager https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/, rustdoc https://doc.rust-lang.org/rustdoc/what-is-rustdoc.html - Rick Astley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Astley, Rickrolling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickrolling and "Never Gonna Give You Up" https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ?si=61p0n3nT8tTOYslW&t=42