bytes.zone

launch ftw, part 8

Brian Hicks, July 4, 2023

After asking around, it turns out that people "in" the formal methods community aren't really that numerous and don't seem to hang out a lot online, or they hang out in tool-specific places. I get the feeling, though, that that's just where the experts hang out… what about the beginners? People struggling to get their heads around what they want to do? Where can they be found? Same question about people looking to hire or buy services—is that LinkedIn? Somewhere else?

I feel like I'm asking the same questions I was asking when looking for Sorbet chat, but with more of a sense that something is out there for me to find. I've seen people mentioning formal methods online far more than I've seen them mentioning Sorbet, so those folks are surely out there, right?

Some things I've looked at to try and verify that I'm not in a bubble again:

This isn't a lot to go on, but I haven't looked at Reddit or tool-specific forums like Dafny, Alloy, etc yet. I am now remembering how many LaTeX-formatted papers you need to go through to make progress in this space, though, which indicates that there is a lot of academic work. I'm not in those spaces, though, and I suspect I'd struggle to break in.

That's all the time I have for today, so we'll have to pick this up next time.

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