Twelve test generators for twelve programming languages

Hey all!

Hope you all had a nice long weekend.

In a moment I will post some new material, a document with pointers for some C language constraints that should give you some inspiration and guidance when building up some simpler constraints for your language. I'll take a peek at the forum tomorrow and answer any outstanding posts, and catch up on your emails as well. We will share a larger, shared repo with you tomorrow as well, as discussed on Friday.

Best,
Alexi

Howdy!

Sorry for the short notice, but tomorrow we will meet at the usual time, but on Zoom: https://cispa-de.zoom-x.de/j/61800509104?pwd=6wv00wiDUDl8MKHlS7k20fxgt2sMmV.1

Looking forward to hearing about your adventures with your programming languages! I will get to some outstanding emails shortly.

See ya tomorrow,
Alexi

Hey all!

I just added two new documents: one about how to compose constraints together and set up a basic NSGA-2 evolver (i.e., the multi-objective optimization algorithm, as when we have multiple constraints, we want to optimize for all of them), as well as one about how to set generation goals.

I also updated the grammar document with some of the discussion we had last Friday.

For this week, I'd like you to focus on getting your grammar working (if you haven't already), and running some preliminary experiments by generating lots of programs, trying to compile them, and seeing what sort of issues the compilers find with the programs. This will help you prioritize what behaviour to constrain, as well as help us identify general, generic issues that many languages face. Our discussion on Friday will centre around this. Also, if you're feeling particularly ambitious, you could try writing some really basic constraints to get more familiar with the design patterns. Remember: every line of Rust, every constraint you write will be easier than the last!

Best,
Alexi

Howdy!

I will add some new material in a few minutes which goes over some issues you may face when adapting a grammar into fandango-rs. The document has a walkthrough of me taking the JavaScript ANTLR grammar, using the fandango-py tooling to convert it, and step-by-step fixing issues and trying to shed some light on the opaque error messages you will no doubt face. 

Hey all!

More info on developing your grammars is forthcoming, as well as a summary of Friday's discussion.

As promised, here is the list of languages people are initially working on:

Lea: Julia
Syed: Lua
Johannes Haegele: Squirrel
Jashmanpreet: Rust
Jan: Swift
Chi: Go
Johannes Victor Weissmann: Typst (or C# if Typst is rough)
Haoyang: Java
Farbod: Pascal
Niklas: Kotlin
Waleed: Dart
Aadrish: OCaml
Philipp: C++

BTW, let me know if you'd like to switch languages, from here on it'll be on a first come, first serve basis for language changes. 

Howdy!

Action Item: Please share your programming language rankings with us by Wednesday via submission in CMS. We'd like to finalize the language assignments by Friday.

Hope you had a nice weekend! Besides the above action item, a few minor updates:

1. Updated the material for the Week 1 & 2 Tasks (a few little fixes), and shared a PDF version of the slides instead of Keynote.

2. I will share a few more tutorial documents throughout the week, namely discussing combining constraints, generation goals, fixers, and the more advanced evolutionary algorithm. 

3. The plan for this Friday is to first discuss the Week 1 & 2 Tasks, discuss programming language assignments, and I will then present some material on how to prepare a grammar for the language you will have chosen.

4. There's also now a forum set up in CMS.

Best,

Alexi

Hey all!

As promised in the kick-off meeting, I've just posted two documents in "Materials":

1. The slides from the meeting, and 

2. A much more detailed document, walking you through setting up your first fandango-rs crate, as well as three tasks to complete, one thinking, one reading, and one implementing. Please read and work on these tasks before the next seminar meeting.

While you go about getting your first crate up and running, think of a preferably ranked list of at least three programming languages you'd like to fuzz in this course. We will likely ask you to submit list before the seminar meeting next week so that we can ensure a good spread of unique programming languages. Besides that, if you encounter any insurmountable difficulties when following the tasks, particularly if the instructions are unclear or you struggle with implementing the extra constraint, let us know! Now, let's find tons of compiler bugs.

Dear all,

Please be reminded that you need to formally register for the seminar "exam" in LSF by May 15, 2026. Do not forget to do so; we'd suggest that you register right now.

You can also always un-register by that date, should you find the seminar is not to your taste (and register again if your mood changes). However, be also reminded that we're always here to help you make your participation a success :-)

Looking forward to working with you,

Andreas + Alexi