Modeling to Understand Limits

I was reading about the true value of formal modeling and this quote drew my attention:

[…] we're not out to solve the Byzantine generals problem or whatever, but just to make sure there aren't any big issues we hadn't thought of or flaws we can't live with.

Of course! I didn’t really think about this before. When we discover a limitation of our design (e.g. a bug) it doesn’t mean we must fix it by any means. The real value here is the knowledge of limits of the system. It’s cool to know about your limitations before you release to production instead of discovering them by dealing with their consequences.