The Coq mailing list

[Rene Vestergaard <vester AT jaist.ac.jp>]

I will shortly be attempting to reach a, for us, non-standard audience with a 
project that includes the verification of the complete reasoning in a 
molecular-biology monograph.

The primary sales argument is by proxy: there’s a Curry-Howard component to 
the project that allows us to solve an open problem in the application domain.

The primary scientific argument concerns formal reasoning, including the 
value of formalising/verifying a large body of knowledge, be it a textbook, a 
monograph, a “big” result, or similar.

I have my own personal arguments for why large applications are a good idea:
- tests of and guidance for maturity/naturalness/expressivity of tools and 
methodologies,
- development of libraries/momentum/etc.,
- teaching/industrial/etc. purposes,
- retrodiction and, of course, 
- assuring large case splits and proof by reflection.

I was hoping people would help me with
1) what big applications have been done? what arguments were used?
2) do the arguments hold up in retrospect?

While 1) can be answered by references, I am particularly hoping that some of 
the people behind these projects would attempt to answer 2) as best as 
possible.

Cheers,
Rene