Software robustness is a hot potato in Software Development (from requirement capture to validation and verification - and yes, I think software robustness has to be considered and systematically built into each phase of the software development using appropriate processes and methodologies).
Faulty, unreliable software designs are expensive to redesign, enhance, retest and/or maintain. They are also damaging - business and reputably damaging to the developer(s) and their client(s), with potential loss of end-user customers.
The legal and technical wrangling over the Government's "abandoned" NHS IT system is an example of software development complexity, what can go wrong and how it went wrong:
Finding a proven and tested way to:
develop robust, fault free software
managing the design and development of near fault free software through a manual (initially), preferably automated software reliability risk analysis system
within the project's estimated budget and time framework, would:
increase confidence,
reduce design,development and maintenance cost
restore software design's sullied and tattered reputation (http://heartbleed.com/) - sometimes unjustified - but good software design/development are not newsworthy.
The IET Harrow Branch Meeting on the 15th May 2014 promises a possible solution with the Talk presentation title:
Software Reliability: Helping you to write better programs
The speaker, Nathan Chong, Imperial College, will talk about his "scalable verification techniques for data-parallel programs.
To register for the talk or see details : http://www.theiet.org/events/local/199433.cfm?nxtid=