[plt-scheme] Expressivity gap between formal methods and PL's

What are formal languages?

Formal methods are verification systems that somehow establish  
logical properties of software systems (or their models).


On Apr 30, 2009, at 1:37 PM, wooks wrote:

> To what extent can a programming language (of the right type)
> replicate the expressivity of formal languages.
>
> It seems to me that if an organisation is going to deploy formal
> methods  then it would always make sense to do an implementation in a
> language that as far as possible retains the same expressive
> constructs. I do not see the sense in going straight to an
> implementation language (like the one that begins with a J) for such
> systems. Well ok people may say performance, or the ability to recruit
> staff, but I argue that  it would still seem worth creating an
> executable in a language capable of expressing similar formalisms  as
> an  oracle for testing your final implementation.
>
> Second question. What is the difference between formal languages and
> modelling languages (is the answer the degree of formalism?).
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