CS 615 - Lectures

Lectures

The class meets Tuesday and Thursdays from 2:00pm to 3:15pm in MEC 341.

Date Topic (and notes, when available) Homework Reading For The Next Class
Tue Aug 26 Welcome To Wonderland All homeworks are posted.
Start early!
Thomas Ball and Sriram Rajamani's The SLAM Project: Debugging System Software via Static Analysis
Thomas Ball and Sriram Rajamani's Automatically Validating Temporal Safety Properties of Interfaces
Thu Aug 28 Model Checking
SLAM Introduction
Henzinger et al.'s Lazy Abstraction
Henzinger et al.'s Thread-modular Abstraction Refinement (optional)
Tue Sep 02 Program Verification Using Counterexample-guided Abstraction Refinement Winskel Chapter Two: Introduction to operational semantics
Hoare's Hints On Programming Language Design (shorter than it looks)
Weimer's Midterm Pi (optional, but if you replace "Cool" with "Your Favorite Language" you should be able to answer most of the questions in it)
Spolsky's The Perils of JavaSchools (optional, short, controversial, relevant)
Thu Sep 04 A Simple Imperative Language
Operational Semantics
HW 0 Due Choose at least one of these three:
1. Wegner's Programming Languages - The First 25 years
2. Wirth's On the Design of Programming Languages (bonus points if you mistakenly choose this one just because it has the lowest page count)
3. Nauer's Report on the algorithmic language ALGOL 60 (the language that Hoare said was an improvement not only on its predecessors but also on nearly all of its successors)
Cobbe and Felleisen's Environmental acquisition revisited (optional, recent paper -- POPL 2005, uses operational semantics on page 7, figure 11, just skim to that figure and see if you recognize it)
Chen and Tarditi's A simple typed intermediate language for object-oriented languages (optional, recent paper -- POPL 2005, uses operational semantics on page 9, figure 14, just skim to that and note the non-standard syntax -- but you should be able to interpret the (H; V ; x : t = v in e) rule, for example)
Plotkin's A Structural Approach To Operational Semantics (optional, basically a textbook, see chapter 2 for another take on what we're covering in class)
Tue Sep 09 Contextual Operational Semantics Chaptire Trois De Winskel: Some principles of induction
Wikipedia's Natural deduction (optional, sections 1-3 show judgments and rules of inference for a simpler system -- propositional logic, read this if you want another take on derivations)
Phillip's Degrees of Interpretation (optional, Philosophy of Science; if you like math or theory this is worth it)
Thu Sep 11 Proof Techniques For Operational Semantics
Structural Induction
HW 1 Due Capítulo Cinco De Winskel: The denotational semantics of IMP
Capítulo Ocho De Winskel: Introduction to domain theory (read for general concepts, not details)
Tue Sep 16 Whirlwind Denotation Semantics (1/2) Capítulo Cinco De Winskel: The denotational semantics of IMP (really this time!)
Capítulo Ocho De Winskel: Introduction to domain theory (read for general concepts, not details)
Thu Sep 18 Whirlwind Denotational Semantics (2/2) HW 2 Due Winskel Kapitel Sechs-Eins Bis Sechs-Vier: The axiomatic semantics of IMP
Hoare's An Axiomatic Basis for Computer Programming
Floyd's Assigning Meaning to Programs
Lee's A Denotational Semantics for Dataflow with Firing (skim up to and including section 2.4 for an alternative presentation of partial orders, least upper bounds, monotonic and continuous functions, and least fixed points)
Tue Sep 23 Intro To Axiomatic Semantics Winskel Capitolele sase-cinci pana la sase-sapte (6.5-6.7) si sapte-unu pana la sapte-trei (7.1-7.3): Completeness of the Hoare rules
Hoare's Proof of a program: FIND
Necula's Completeness of Axiomatic Semantics (using operational semantics)
Thu Sep 25 Axiomatic Semantics 2:
With A Vengeance
HW 3 Due
Project Proposal Due
Winskel Chapters 7.4-7.6: Completeness of the Hoare Rules
Dijkstra's Guarded Commands, Nondeterminancy and Formal Derivation of Programs
Tue Sep 30 Verification Conditions Cousot and Cousot's Abstract Interpretation
Abramski's An introduction to abstract interpretation
Thu Oct 02 Abstract Interpretation HW 4 Due Thompson's Reflections on Trusting Trust
Wikipedia's Abstract Interpretation (optional)
Tue Oct 07 Abstract Interpretation 2:
The Wrath of Cousot
Benjamin Pierce's Foundational Calculi for Programming Languages (pages 1-10)
Thu Oct 09 Lambda Calculus And Functional Programming Xavier Leroy's Formal Certification of a Compiler Back-end or: Programming a Compiler with a Proof Assistant
Li & Zdancewic's Downgrading Policies and Relaxed Noninterference (optional, describes secure information flow and non-interference using the lambda calculus, check out section 4)
Tue Oct 14 Lambda Two: Electric Boogaloo HW 5 Due Luca Cardelli's Type Systems
Thu Oct 16 Simply-Typed Lambda Calculus Project Status Update Due Andrew Wright and Matthias Felleisen's A syntactic approach to type soundness
Tue Oct 21 Monomorphic Type Systems John Goodenough's Exception Handling: Issues and a Proposed Notation (optional, 1975, this is the canonical paper on exception handling)
Thu Oct 23 Exceptions and Continuations
Tue Oct 28 Recursive Types and Subtyping
Thu Oct 30 Second-Order Types (Polymorphism)
Tue Nov 04 Dependant Types and Data Abstraction Nelson and Oppen's Fast Decision Procedures Based On Congruence Closure
Thu Nov 06 Automated Theorem Proving and Proof Checking Benjamin Pierce's Foundational Calculi for Programming Languages (pages 10-end)
Dawson Engler et al.'s Automatically Generating Malicious Disks Using Symbolic Execution (optional, uses symex and theorem proving)
Tue Nov 11 Communication and Concurrency Robert DeLine and Manuel Fahndrich's Enforcing high-level protocols in low-level software
Weimer and Necula's Finding And Preventing Run-Time Error Handling Mistakes
Thu Nov 13 Type Systems For Resource Management Hooimeijer and Weimer's Modeling Bug Report Quality
Tue Nov 18 Machine Learning 1 Buse and Weimer's A Metric for Software Readability
Thu Nov 20 Machine Learning 2 Liblit et al.'s Bug Isolation via Remote Program Sampling
Tue Nov 25 Cooperative Bug Isolation Projects Due Speech Evaluation Form
Object-Oriented Programming Slides (optional)
Thu Nov 27 No Lecture - Thanksgiving Recess
(Nov 26 - Nov 30)
Austen's Pride and Prejudice (optional)
Barzun's From Dawn To Decadence (optional)
Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel (optional)
Goldman's The Princess Bride (optional)
Tue Dec 02
8-Minute Student Presentations
(show up on time)
(class goes until 3:25)
Presentation Signup Reminder & Hints
  1. Kirti Chawla
  2. Zak Fry
  3. Luther Tychonievich
  4. Irwin Reyes
  5. Blake Sheridan
  6. Kristen Walcott
  7. Dan Lepage
  8. Ming Mao
  9. Elizabeth Soechting
Thu Dec 04
8-Minute Student Presentations
(show up on time)
(class goes until 3:25)
  1. Wil Burns
  2. Daniel Dougherty
  3. Mona Sergi
  4. Andrew Jurik
  5. Ren Xu
  6. Sam Block
  7. Tim Chaplin
  8. Derek Davis
  9. Arkaitz Ruiz Alvarez
  10. Michael Skalak