🔥 Most Discussed Topics 🔥
🧩 Three Ways Formal Verification Can Fail
An insightful and approachable critique of formal verification’s limits, reminding readers that mathematical proofs are only as strong as their assumptions. Essential reading for developers and researchers who rely on verification tools and want to understand their real-world boundaries.
Hillel Wayne examines how code labeled as ‘formally verified’ can still malfunction despite being mathematically proven correct. He identifies three failure modes: invalid or flawed proofs, incomplete or incorrect specifications, and faulty assumptions about system environments or dependencies. Using examples like Unicode mishandling in verified leftpad implementations and integer overflow in verified binary search, Wayne underscores how misunderstanding what ‘correctness’ means can lead to overconfidence in verification results.
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💾 Ask HN: Great Projects That Died Too Soon
A nostalgic yet thoughtful look at visionary computing projects that failed for non-technical reasons. It reminds us that history is full of pioneering ideas worth reexamining as technology cycles back to old inspirations.
A Hacker News discussion revisits ambitious software projects that were discontinued before achieving their full potential. Participants highlight examples like Microsoft’s WinFS, Apple’s OpenDoc, the Symbolics Genera Lisp OS, and Bauhaus OS for the Newton—each representing innovative ideas such as database-backed file systems, modular software, and Lisp-driven operating systems. The thread reflects on how these early concepts could still influence today’s software design.
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