5 ms·

I've got no problem with model checkers, though I'm not sure I agree with your effort ratings. Different tools for different jobs, eh? I think I also have a di

by tel 11y ago

I've got no problem with model checkers, though I'm not sure I agree with your effort ratings. Different tools for different jobs, eh? I think I also have a different conception of proof than you're naming. You don't need to prove your entire program. 10 small proofs strung together can go an enormous distance with low weight.

pron 11y ago
I don't know. The spec I'm working on now is ~1300 lines of TLA+, and that's just the essential core of the thing -- nowhere near the whole program. By comparison, the Raft TLA+ spec is under third of that, yet the Verdi proof[1] is ~50K LOC, took a whole team of experts months of work, and didn't prove liveness. I have a very small sub-algorithm that I might try proving in TLA+ just to see how it goes. [1]: I couldn't find the original TLA+ proof online, but the author of the Raft protocol said that he struggled even with partial machine-checked proofs.
- tel 11y ago
  I don't think this is really surprising. I don't know a ton about distributed systems, but the last time I read up on formalizing them and proving properties it seemed like an incredibly daunting task. There's an exponential blowup problem in that you end up having to follow every state in the state spaces of every actor against every other state over time. I saw some interesting proofs which used topological invariants to keep a hold of that whole complex more delicately... but to actually just dive in and try exhausting it cannot be simple.
  - pron 11y ago
    Well, formalizing them isn't too hard, and model-checking them is quite easy (once you have a good formal spec), but proving them is another matter altogether... People prove specific algorithms (distributed, concurrent or sequential) with TLA+, but once the spec is of a real system, things get much, much harder to prove.

5 ms·

I've got no problem with model checkers, though I'm not sure I agree with your effort ratings. Different tools for different jobs, eh? I think I also have a di

by tel 11y ago

pron 11y ago
I don't know. The spec I'm working on now is ~1300 lines of TLA+, and that's just the essential core of the thing -- nowhere near the whole program. By comparison, the Raft TLA+ spec is under third of that, yet the Verdi proof[1] is ~50K LOC, took a whole team of experts months of work, and didn't prove liveness. I have a very small sub-algorithm that I might try proving in TLA+ just to see how it goes. [1]: I couldn't find the original TLA+ proof online, but the author of the Raft protocol said that he struggled even with partial machine-checked proofs.
- tel 11y ago
  I don't think this is really surprising. I don't know a ton about distributed systems, but the last time I read up on formalizing them and proving properties it seemed like an incredibly daunting task. There's an exponential blowup problem in that you end up having to follow every state in the state spaces of every actor against every other state over time. I saw some interesting proofs which used topological invariants to keep a hold of that whole complex more delicately... but to actually just dive in and try exhausting it cannot be simple.
  - pron 11y ago
    Well, formalizing them isn't too hard, and model-checking them is quite easy (once you have a good formal spec), but proving them is another matter altogether... People prove specific algorithms (distributed, concurrent or sequential) with TLA+, but once the spec is of a real system, things get much, much harder to prove.