Mike Dodds

@m-dodds.bsky.social

240 Followers 57 Following

Formal methods nitwit. https://mikedodds.github.io AI / math / formal methods paper feed: @ai-fm-papers.bsky.social

Screenshot of article text: “Formal verification today is very useful, but for most systems it’s very difficult to write the kinds of complete specifications that verification needs. However, other kinds of specifications are popular: for example, a test case is a kind of limited, partial specification. The key is that a test case is immediately useful, and doesn’t impose undue costs on the development team. We need to find ways to specify systems that have these virtues, and avoid the trap of imposing a complete and coherent view that fundamentally does not exist.”
Text screenshot: I sometimes hear people claiming that formal methods are demonstrably better than the techniques software engineers mostly use today. The only reason formal techniques aren’t more popular (according to this theory) is that engineering teams are unaware, conservative, maybe put off by superficial difficulties like poor interfaces and documentation. I don’t think this is quite right. My observation is that engineers are mostly rational when thinking about costs and benefits, at least within the bounds of their particular systems and problems.
A graph of costs and benefits plotted against each other. There is a line under which is “Your favourite under-appreciated formal method”. There are two arrows pointing orthogonally away: “be cheaper” and “be more beneficial”
A pair of empty chairs in a theatre before a live show, with a sign above it showing Larry David and “Curb Your Enthusiasm”