Seminar Description
How can a software developer ensure that the software they have designed does what it is supposed to do? Program analysis is an area of computer science that is concerned with the development of methods and tools that assist programmers in developing correct and robust programs. This includes obtaining a formal understanding of complex programs, automatically verifying that programs work correctly as intended, automatically repairing, generating and optimizing code. Program analysis techniques are nowadays part of the software design process at companies such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. In this seminar, we will read and discuss research papers that present the state of the art in program analysis.
Organization
Each student will be assigned a paper, which they should carefully read and prepare presentation on, exploring the surrounding literature as needed. The presentations will take place in a block seminar at the end of the semester (the precise dates are to be agreed with the participants). Four weeks prior to the presentations each student will submit a 4-page talk proposal in which they should explain what they are going to present in the talk, together with an abstract of the talk. Each proposal will be reviewed by the organizer and by two seminar participants. Each student will also write two 1-page reviews on other participant's proposals and submit them one week after receiving the respective proposal. After receiving the reviews of their proposal, each student should prepare and submit the slides for the presentation at least one week before the presentations take place. After the presentations each student should submit a final summary of their talk, incorporating the peer feedback and the group discussion.
Logistics
The kick-off meeting will take place online via Zoom, the block presentations will be in-person or in hybrid format.
Important dates
03.05, 16:15: Kick-off meeting; the Zoom link is available under "Information" and will also be communicated via email.
15.06, 18:00: Deadline for submission of presentation proposal via email.
26.06, 18:00: Deadline for submission of presentation proposal reviews via email.
08.07, 18:00: Deadline for submission of draft slides via email.
13.07 -- 15.07: Presentations.
Location: CISPA 0.01 (+ online, Zoom link in Information)
Time: Wednesday+Thursday 9:15 -- 13:00; Friday: 10:35 -- 13:00
16.08, 18:00: Deadline for submission of draft summary.
06.09, 18:00: Deadline for submission of final version of summary.
Grading
- Talk proposal: 40%
- Presentation: 40%
- Reviews: 20% (10% for each review)