This state-of-the-art survey is an outcome of the first IFIP TC 2/WG 2.3 working conference on Verified Software: Theories, Tools, Experiments, VSTTE 2005, held in Zurich, Switzerland, in October 2005. This was a historic event gathering many top international experts on systematic methods for specifying, building and verifying high-quality software. The book includes 32 revised full papers and 27 revised position papers, preceded by a general introduction to the area, which also presents the vision of a grand challenge project: the "verifying compiler". Most contributions are followed by a transcription of the vivid discussion that ensued between the author and the audience. The papers have been organized in topical sections on verification tools, guaranteeing correctness, software engineering aspects, verifying object-oriented programming, programming language and methodology aspects, components, static analysis, design, analysis and tools, as well as formal techniques.