Editing Design by contract (section)

==History==
The term was coined by [[Bertrand Meyer]] in connection with his design of the [[Eiffel (programming language)|Eiffel programming language]] and first described in various articles starting in 1986<ref>Meyer, Bertrand: ''Design by Contract'', Technical Report TR-EI-12/CO, Interactive Software Engineering Inc., 1986</ref><ref>Meyer, Bertrand: ''Design by Contract'', in ''Advances in Object-Oriented Software Engineering'', eds. D. Mandrioli and B. Meyer, Prentice Hall, 1991, pp. 1–50</ref><ref>Meyer, Bertrand: "[http://se.ethz.ch/~meyer/publications/computer/contract.pdf Applying "Design by Contract"]", in ''Computer'' (IEEE), 25, 10, October 1992, pp. 40–51.</ref> and the two successive editions (1988, 1997) of his book ''[[Object-Oriented Software Construction]]''.  Eiffel Software applied for trademark registration for ''Design by Contract'' in December 2003, and it was granted in December 2004.<ref name=DbC_tm_words>{{cite web|url=http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4010:lsqmmo.2.2|title=United States Patent and Trademark Office registration for "DESIGN BY CONTRACT"|access-date=2009-06-22|archive-date=2016-12-21|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161221062729/http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4010:lsqmmo.2.2|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=DbC_tm_design>{{cite web|url=http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4010:lsqmmo.2.1|title=United States Patent and Trademark Office registration for the graphic design with words "Design by Contract"|access-date=2009-06-22|archive-date=2016-12-21|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161221062436/http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4010:lsqmmo.2.1|url-status=dead}}</ref> The current owner of this trademark is Eiffel Software.<ref name=DbC_tm_words2>{{cite web|url=http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=78342277|title=Trademark Status & Document Retrieval - 78342277 |website=USPTO Trademark Application and Registration Retrieval}}</ref><ref name=DbC_tm_design2>{{cite web|url=http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=78342308|title=Trademark Status & Document Retrieval - 78342308 |website=USPTO Trademark Application and Registration Retrieval}}</ref>

Design by contract has its roots in work on [[formal verification]], [[formal specification]] and [[Hoare logic]]. The original contributions include:
*A clear metaphor to guide the design process
*The application to [[inheritance (object-oriented programming)|inheritance]], in particular a formalism for redefinition and [[dynamic binding (computer science)|dynamic binding]]
*The application to [[exception (computer science)|exception handling]]
*The connection with automatic [[software documentation]]