Talk:Formal methods

message: One of the most important model checkers is Java Pathfinder. It should be added.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.84.60.204 (talk) 04:43, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Model Checkers 

message: I'm not sure this example is really appropriate; it's one specific method out of many.  At a minimum, the tone is too informal.  I'm going to move it here for now and perhaps work on incorporating it later. Jim Huggins 21:32, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Old Example

message: It is true that an automated theorem-prover requires human assistance simply because the logic is (normally) too expressive, but what is the rationale for claiming that model-checking approaches "quickly get bogged down in checking millions of uninteresting states if not given a sufficiently abstract model"? What is a "sufficiently abstract model"? What does it mean to get "bogged down"? Finally, why does it matter? // Mats Kindahl 06:28, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This was presumably written by someone trying to provide a "balanced point of view". But I agree that the statement isn't particularly clear or useful. It'd probably be better to substitute a (referenced) sentence that describes the weaknesses of model-checking. --Allan McInnes (talk) 15:29, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Verification 

message: :Moved from article --Allan McInnes (talk) 18:44, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: What seems to be missing in this article is the middle ground between hand-written mathematical proofs and automatic theorem proving. The interactive theorem provers like Isabelle, Coq, etc. allow writing proofs that are machine checkable. -- Hritcu 11:17, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please feel free to add any material you think the article is missing. --Allan McInnes (talk) 04:11, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please add machine checkable proofs 

message: * "internal criticisms" ? What does this mean?
* proving correctness requires a long time (and time means money) - duh, it is a fact not a criticism, like all the other statements in this section. Sure, it would be nice to have references for these claims, but they seem pretty much common sense, and they are not critical, to justify having them in a criticisms section. On the other hand the article is full of "critics say" statements which would very well suit this section, since they make the article look like a slashdot discussion not an encyclopaedia entry. -- Hritcu 11:31, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Few thoughts about your post:1) I think it is nice to have the common sense ("fact") written for people who don't know the subject.2) I disagree with you that it is a common sense. In fact, many Formal Methods' proponents preach for it being widely applied in any field, not only high risk systems. So I think Criticism is the right place for it.3) I don't really follow your reasoning... You think it is a obvious "fact", but at the same time you say it require references.4) In some cases, placing "critics say" is a nice way to show what opponents say about it, while showing NPOV. And I don't understand why you think an Encyclopedia can't show when something has disagreements (like widely using formal methods against not using it).SSPecter Talk|E-Mail ◆ 17:50, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticisms Section Contains Facts, Not Criticisms 

message: "Verifying the verifier" is an instance of a deeper philosophical problem named "Who watches the watchmen?". So I added an interdisciplinary link to Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? in the text of the article. --Antonielly (talk) 18:15, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who watches the watchmen? 

message: Should Test-driven_development be considered a newer formal method?
Crowne (talk) 22:03, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Tests are a formal specification of behaviour -one's machines can read- but they tend to be unsuited for formal proofs of correctness, at least when procedural languages are used to write the tests. SteveLoughran (talk) 13:21, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Test-Driven Development 

message: This encroachment is contradicted by the ACM classification system where "formal methods" is only a level-4 leaf. It certainly does not include programming language semantics in the ACM classification. This article, as well as the associated Wikipedia categories have been written/populated by someone with an obvious vested interest in enlarging the meaning of "formal methods". It reminds me of those mathematician that try to include computational complexity theory in computability theory despite the fact that the common view in computer science (c.f. theory of computation, which mostly follows the ACM classification) is that the two are distinct. On this wiki a number of prominent computer scientists  have been categorized as "formal methods people", from Alan Turing to Don Knuth, none of which identified themselves as such, nor did they work in this fields as usually defined; they would certainly be theoretical computer science people as that notion is used nowadays, but that's far wider category. Pcap ping 15:09, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think I've addressed the issue. I've used a book written by a "formal methods person" as source. Pcap ping 18:51, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  "the sub-discipline of [[programming language semantics]]" 

message: This article currently says that formal methods can be used at different levels, namely Levels 0 to 2. Does this leveling imply increasing quality of formal methods with respect to correctness? And if so, what is the difference in quality between Level 1 (formal development and formal verification) and Level 2 (theorem prover)? --Abdull (talk) 09:17, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't find any source for any such formalized taxonomy of formal methods. Additionally, the information in the list of levels contains a lot of unsourced opinion. I think the entire Taxonomy section could be renamed to "Approaches" and rewritten to better explain how these approaches are actually used in practice. Cryolophosaur (talk) 04:15, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Level taxonomy 

message: I did not find such general consensus information in lately papers
Applying Formal Methods to Networking: Theory, Techniques, and Applications by Junaid Qadir and Osman Hasan has some sort of taxonomy, though 
they differ in Soundness,Automation,Counter Examples and Generic
"Most of the static analysis tools compromise the soundness to improve completeness of the analysis" -> soundness as criteria, a table would be great though I am not sure if i can just insert the table of the paper or what the general scientific consens is
[System Theory view also missing using Lyapunov functions]
anyone found another paper with a good overview over all/most usable solvers + taxonomy?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.61.102.191 (talk) 23:04, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Level Taxonomy reference missing or level construct not appropriate 

message: GFDL Ramadan.halitii (talk) 14:20, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  CC BY SA 3.0 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Formal methods. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20061116210448/http://klabs.org/richcontent/verification/holloway/nasa-97-16dasc-cmh.pdf to http://klabs.org/richcontent/verification/holloway/nasa-97-16dasc-cmh.pdf
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 04:26, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 3 external links on Formal methods. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060301022259/http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2003/01/George.html to http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2003/01/George.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060309041943/http://home0.inet.tele.dk/pgl/fmtrends98.pdf to http://home0.inet.tele.dk/pgl/fmtrends98.pdf
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130404202524/http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Keyword/14916 to http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Keyword/14916
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 13:50, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The article asserts things like: 
: ... formal methods lite. This may be the most cost-effective option in many cases.
: ... fully formal machine-checked proofs. Despite improving tools and declining costs, this can be very expensive and is only practically worthwhile if the cost of mistakes is very high ...
That is false. The real problem is
: ... Additionally, the work involved in producing such a good proof requires a high level of mathematical sophistication and expertise.
yes even today there is a lack of people who can do that work.
Commercial software is developed is released prematurely to "gain the market".
The maintenance cost of ill written programs may accumulate years of work. While the time invested doing a good analysis, specification and design is much more that the time needed to carelessly write a program quickly. With formal methods the maintenance cost is much more lower because, ideally, it is mainly required due to changes in the requirements, contrary to fixing mistakes (bugs) produced when the programs are carelessly written on the rush.
Today many people prefer to write disposable programs instead because they perceive that it is not worth to invest the time needed to use formal methods to make sure that they do correctly what is required to do. 
After all with all the accumulated experience they have, they make less errors each time. There is no apparent gain in learning all the sophisticated mathematics required to understand and use formal methods.  
That is more a cultural issue, I think that the article should not mention nothing about cost-effectiveness, because that is not really true, is more a social issue, due to an education systems along the world that makes students to perceive that mathematics are too complicated.
: Hi! 100% agreed, and happy to help with discussing and improving the article in this regard. By the way, your comments are unsigned and you aren't logged in -- would you be willing to create an account and sign your comments by adding four tildes at the end? Best regards, Caleb Stanford (talk) 18:51, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Don't propagate the myth that "formal methods are not cost-effective" 

message: Hi  I reverted your recent edit as I don't think including a self-published Git link is appropriate, but many of the entries in the table are sourced -- if you're interested, perhaps you could include some of that information here (with the original source), I think that would be very welcome. Caleb Stanford (talk) 03:07, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  re List of companies that use formal methods in industry