Re: My thoughts on the "new development model"

Adrian Bunk
2004-10-29T21:38:05Z

On Thu, Oct 28, 2004 at 03:28:18AM -0400, Hacksaw wrote:

> > That's NOT the same as bug free software. For a start, there's no such
> > thing.
>
> Speaking of which, here's something I have wondered: is anyone out there
> trying to prove the correctness of core functions in the kernel? I was
> thinking this would be a fine activity for all those eager college students
> out there, or perhaps a graduate student project, a la the Stanford Checker
> project.
>
> While I can't imagine the main developers doing such a thing, I think it'd be
> useful and might uncover some hard to find bugs.
>
> I'd also suspect that they might be good candidates for proving, as there's
> not so much reason to have side effect riddled code, as one might for GUI
> programs.

Did you ever try to prove the correctness of some piece of code in an
imperative programming language? That's definitely not only "a graduate
student project".

cu
Adrian

--

"Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
"Only a promise," Lao Er said.
Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed