the.com/correctness
Being right isn't enough if nobody can tell you're right before the deadline.
means The quality of being accurate, true, or in line with the facts or the rules.
from Traces back to the Latin corrigere, 'to make straight' — from com- (thoroughly) plus regere (to rule, guide, keep straight, the same root that gives us 'regent' and 'direct'). So correctness was literally the state of having been straightened out — bent reasoning or crooked facts set right. English picked it up through French in the medieval period, and the word has kept that sense of alignment ever since: not just truth, but truth squared up against a standard.
- vs truth
- correctness is proof, truth just is
- formal systems
- a correct proof can still prove something useless
- engineering tradeoff
- perfectly correct code often ships never
- illusion
- tests passing is evidence, not a guarantee