The Evidence Is In?
Three practitioners, three reports from the field. Share what you read, argue about what the evidence actually shows, and post your group's takeaway.
The Readings
For Reading Reflection 2, you chose one of three options. Each author reports from inside a real formal-methods engagement:
- Dodds, Specifications Don't Exist (2025)
- Helwer, A Supposedly Worthwhile Contract I'll Never Do Again (2025)
- Lopes et al., Provably Correct Peephole Optimizations with Alive (2015)
Tonight we will discuss these readings in small groups. Groups will not always have people who read different papers, and that is fine.
Discussion Protocol
Four rounds, ten minutes each.
Share (10 min)
Each person: which reading you chose, what the core claim is, and your gut reaction.
Some starting points if helpful:
- Which spec in a system you work on most resembles what your author is describing?
- Was there a specific claim or moment in the reading that you keep coming back to?
Debate (10 min)
All three readings point at specification as the place where the real work lives. What does the evidence actually show?
Some starting points if helpful:
- Do Dodds, Helwer, and Lopes agree on what "specification is the hard part" means? Where do they diverge?
- In your own work, is the bottleneck writing specs, proving things, or something else entirely?
- If proofs became free tomorrow, what would actually change in how you build software?
If you reach easy consensus: what would the author of one of the other readings say to your group right now?
Converge + Post (10 min)
As a group, decide: what was the sharpest thing you argued about? Where did you land? What's one question you couldn't settle? What do you want the other groups to know?
Post your group's summary to both Ed and Gradescope.
Report-Out (10 min)
Groups share what they found. What couldn't your group settle? Did anyone change their mind? Looking back at the question we closed with two weeks ago, has this week's evidence moved your answer?