Jesus, I cant stand formal methods people...
it’s all rubbish, grandparent is a small mind who can’t figure out how it’s a step up from nothing.
What formal correctness proof will detect that?
"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence"
- Edsger DijkstraThis thread is hilarious, thank you. You start off saying you "cant [sic] stand formal methods people" and now you're giving an example of why formal methods are useful. And you're appealing to authority using a man who was a major proponent of formal methods. What's your actual position on formal methods?
The quote from Dijkstra stands on its own...quoting a famous person stating something independently demonstrable, does not magically turn the statement into an appeal to authority :-))
>> a man who was a major proponent of formal methods.
No he was not, but you see, its irrelevant in the context of the argument you failed to defend. And Dijkstra fails your purity test.
He himself wrote that he saw "no specific virtue in being a formalist" and would use formal methods "when I feel they help."
Apparently their lawyers never got the memo that the tests already guaranteed the software...
And even if they did, all the test guarantee is that the tests pass, of course the main limit is that they don't actually test even a small fraction of what the customers actually want to do.