[TYPES/announce] Call for Analyzer Pearls: TAPAS 2013 (a SAS 2013 affiliated event and co-located with PLDI 2013)

Tue Mar 5 10:52:14 EST 2013

Executive Summary

TAPAS 2013 invites submissions for "Analyzer Pearls" that are "polished, elegant, instructive, entertaining" presentations on the theory and practice of program analyzer design and implementation.

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                         TAPAS 2013

                 Call for Analyzer Pearls

                         The 4th
            Tools for Automatic Program AnalysiS
                         Workshop
               (a SAS 2013 satellite workshop)

           19 June 2013, Seattle, Washington, USA

             http://pl.cs.colorado.edu/tapas2013
     https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=tapas2013

Important dates

    Submission Deadline     13 April 2013 (23:59 UTC-11 Samoa Standard Time)
    Notification             9 May 2013
    Camera-Ready            25 May 2013
    Workshop                19 June 2013

Objective

In the last ten years, a wide range of static analysis tools have emerged, some of which are currently in industrial use or are well beyond the advanced prototype level. Many impressive practical results have been obtained, which allow complex properties to be proven or checked in a fully or semi-automatic way, even in the context of complex software developments. In parallel, the techniques to design and implement static analysis tools have improved significantly. This workshop is intended to promote discussions between specialists in all areas of program analysis design and implementation and static analysis tool users.   

Scope

The technical program for TAPAS 2013 will consist of invited lectures from leading experts in analysis design and implementation and contributed presentations of Analyzer Pearls (see below).

Analyzer Pearls can cover any aspect of program analysis tools including but not limited to the following:

- design and implementation of static analysis tools;
- components of static analysis tools (front-ends, abstract domains, etc);
- integration of static analyzers (in proof assistants, test generation tools, etc);
- experience reports on the use of static analyzers;
- challenges, such as new properties to address or bottlenecks to overcome; or
- proposals that contribute to the dissemination of static analysis techniques to a wider audience.

Analyzer Pearls

TAPAS 2013 will solicit submissions for Analyzer Pearls that should be distinguished from standard research or tool papers.

Drawing inspiration from Functional Pearls appearing in JFP [1], Analyzer Pearls should contribute instructive essays that describe "tricks of the trade" in formalizing and constructing analyzer tools. An Analyzer Pearl may consider any aspect of the design and implementation of program analyzers--both theoretical and practical.

Example Analyzer Pearls could consist of (but are not limited to):

- an instructive example construction composing abstract domains;
- a nifty decomposition of an analysis engine;
- an effective layering of intermediate representations;
- a interesting data structure design for an analysis component; or
- a crisp formalization methodology for analysis algorithms.

An Analyzer Pearl need not report original research results or describe a specific research tool; they may instead present a distillation or elegant new way of approaching the task of designing and implementing a program analyzer. An Analyzer Pearl could, for example, be supplemented with project files for a homework exercise. They should be "polished, elegant, instructive, entertaining." [2]

We also recall Jon Bentley's quote about Programming Pearls, "Just as from grains of sand that have irritated oysters, these programming pearls have grown from real problems that have irritated programmers. The programs are fun, and they teach important programming techniques and fundamental design principles."  This principle applies also to Analyzer Pearls.  Our goal is to draw out the "pearls" from the community's experience in analysis design and implementation that perhaps "get lost in the details" of standard research papers.  

Following Functional Pearls, reviewers will be instructed to stop reading when:

- they get bored;
- the material gets too complicated;
- too much specialist knowledge is needed; or
- the writing is bad.

Submissions

All submitted pearls will be peer-reviewed by the program committee.   

Submitted pearls should be 10-12 pages in length excluding bibliography and follow the ENTCS guidelines (http://www.entcs.org/prelim.html). Pearls must be written and presented in English and must not substantially overlap with papers that have been published or that are simultaneously submitted to a journal, conference, or workshop with refereed proceedings.

The TAPAS 2013 proceedings has received preliminary approval to be published electronically in a volume of the Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science series.

Program Chair

    Bor-Yuh Evan Chang    University of Colorado Boulder, USA

Program Committee

    Dino Distefano        Queen Mary, University of London, UK
    Ben Hardekopf         University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
    Franjo Ivancic        NEC Labs America, USA
    Roman Manevich        Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel
    Michał Moskal         Microsoft Research, USA

Steering Committee

    Radhia Cousot         CNRS and Ecole Normale Supérieure, France
    Xavier Rival          INRIA and Ecole Normale Supérieure, France

Affiliated Events

    NSAD: The 5th Workshop on Numerical and Symbolic Abstract Domains
          19 June 2013

    SASB: The 4th Workshop on Static Analysis and Systems Biology
          19 June 2013

    SAS : The 20th International Static Analysis Symposium
          20-22 June 2013

Venue

TAPAS 2013 is an affiliated event of SAS 2013.  It will be co-located with ACM PLDI 2013 and will take place at the Red Lion Hotel on 5th Ave in downtown Seattle, Washington, USA. Seattle, home to Amazon, Starbucks, Microsoft, and Boeing is famous for its coffee houses and its beautiful surroundings such as Puget Sound and its numerous islands, as well as the Olympic Peninsula and the nearby Cascade Range.

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[1] http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/jeremy.gibbons/pearls/
[2] Richard Bird. "How to Write a Functional Pearl." http://icfp06.cs.uchicago.edu/bird-talk.pdf

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