The Power of Ten: Rules for Safety Critical Coding by Gerard Holzmann

Gerard Holzmann explains the Power of Ten rules for safety-critical software development, emphasizing static allocation, assertions, and metrics.

NASA's Power of Ten Rules for Safety-Critical Code by Gerard Holzmann—static allocation, assertions and explicit limits—are intrinsic to TigerStyle and it was a joy to have Gerard himself at Systems Distributed! 00:35 Introduction 01:22 Software safety related standards 03:24 Strong risk awareness 05:45 Basics 09:55 The importance of collecting metrics -- the single most important thing you can do 13:40 Defect prevention strategies 16:47 Cataloguing software anomalies in space missions; observations and survey results 24:30 Effective compliance for coding rules 27:19 Simple principles 28:08 The power of ten ruleset (2006) 38:11 Initial responses per rule (and external blog posts discussing rules!) and growing support 41:25 Assertion density 42:35 Using assertions makes a measurable difference 50:37 Consequences for breaking the build 51:37 Cobra Talk from Systems Distributed '26: systemsdistributed.com x.com/gh_spin Slides: tigerbeetle.github.io/slides/sd/2026/Gerard%20Holzmann/The%2…