Software Verification: An Evolution-Centric Perspective

Speaker:	Prof. Gregg Rothermel
		Visiting Professor
    		Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
		and
    		Professor and Jensen Chair of Software Engineering
          	University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Title:		"Software Verification: An Evolution-Centric Perspective"

Date:		Friday, 18 February 2011

Time:		3:00pm - 4:00pm

Venue:		Room 5583 (via lifts 27/28), HKUST

Abstract:

Useful software evolves: it is corrected, enhanced, and adapted to new
platforms, resulting in new releases of systems. It is essential for
software engineers to validate such new releases, but this is often
expensive and can dominate overall software costs. This motivates an
evolution-centric perspective on software verification, where emphasis is
placed on validating evolving systems.

In this talk I describe research following this perspective. I first
describe one particular approach to regression testing using regression
test selection techniques (which reduce regression testing costs by
selecting subsets of existing test suites for reexecution), present a
technique for performing regression test selection, and describe empirical
results obtained in studying that technique. I then show how the
evolution-centric perspective can be usefully extended beyond regression
testing to techniques for "regression model checking", which apply
software model checking incrementally to new versions of systems. Finally,
I provide some early results on techniques for extending automated test
case generation techniques into evolution-centric processes.


*******************
Biography:

Gregg Rothermel's research interests include software engineering and
program analysis, with emphases on the application of program analysis
techniques to problems in software maintenance and testing, end-user
software engineering, and empirical studies.  He received a National
Science Foundation CAREER Award in 1996 for his research on software
maintenance and testing.  He is a co-founder of the EUSES (End-Users
Shaping Effective Software) Consortium, a group of researchers who,
with National Science Foundation support, are leading end-user software
engineering research.  He is a co-founder of Red Rover Software, a company
creating software to help users create dependable spreadsheets.  His
research has also been supported by Boeing Commercial Airplane Group,
Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, and Rogue Wave Software.  In a recent ranking
of International Software Engineering Scholars based on research
productivity, Dr. Rothermel was tied for first (CACM V.50, Issue 6).

Dr. Rothermel is a member of the Editorial Boards of IEEE Transactions on
Software Engineering, the Empirical Software Engineering Journal and the
Software Quality Journal.  He recently served as the General Chair for the
2009 International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis.  Previous
positions also include Associate Editor in Chief for IEEE Transactions on
Software Engineering, Program Co-Chair for the 2007 International
Conference on Software Engineering, Program Chair for the 2004 ACM
International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis, and Chair of the
Steering Committee for the International Conference on Software
Maintenance.  He has served on the program committees for numerous
software engineering conferences including the IEEE International
Conference on Software Engineering, the ACM International Symposium on
Foundations of Software Engineering, and the ACM International Symposium
on Software Testing and Analysis.

Dr. Rothermel received the Ph.D. in Computer Science from Clemson
University, the M.S. in Computer Science from the State University of New
York at Albany and a B.A. in Philosophy from Reed College. He is currently
a Professor and Jensen Chair of Software Engineering in the Department of
Computer Science and Engineering at University of Nebraska where he is a
founding member of the Laboratory for Empirically-based Software Quality
Research and Development (ESQuaReD). Prior to his current position, Dr.
Rothermel was an Assistant and then Associate Professor in the School of
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Oregon State University. He
was also previously employed as a software engineer, and as Vice
President, Quality Assurance and Quality Control for Palette Systems,
Inc., a manufacturer of CAD/CAM software.