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All of the above is true, but can also be said of software testing, with the difference that testing scales better by giving you less guarantees. It is really
by lou1306 9y ago
All of the above is true, but can also be said of software testing, with the difference that testing scales better by giving you less guarantees.
It is really just a matter of choosing the right tool for the job. Sometimes you need to be really really sure everything goes as you expect, and testing alone won't cut it.
- pron 9y agoI'm not even sure testing always scales better -- it depends on your formal tool -- but it's definitely different. For example, some properties -- especially of concurrent/distributed systems -- are nearly impossible to test. Also, the level of confidence offered by formal methods is often configurable to lower costs. Some formal methods can affordably scale to very large systems, with the tradeoff that the confidence is lowered, as it only covers the general algorithm design rather than actual code.