Developing Powerful Software Analysis via Changing Perspectives

Speaker:        Professor Zhendong Su
                University of California, Davis

Title:          "Developing Powerful Software Analysis via Changing
                 Perspectives"

Date:           Thursday, 1 June 2017

Time:           3:00pm - 4:00pm

Venue:          Room 2463 (via lifts 25/26), HKUST

Abstract:

Viewing a difficult problem from a fresh perspective can lead to powerful
insight and solutions. This talk highlights three instances where changed
perspectives have led to fundamentally new and effective attacks on
difficult program analysis challenges.  First, I will describe equivalence
modulo inputs, a general methodology for validating optimizing compilers.
The new perspective is to devise a simple relaxed program equivalence,
leading to the most practical compiler testing technique --- 1,300+
confirmed and 700+ fixed bugs to-date for the widely-used GCC, Clang/LLVM
and ICC compilers. Second, I will introduce mathematical execution, a
novel general approach to analyzing floating-point software. The new
perspective is to establish the equivalence of achieving an analysis
objective and optimizing a certain mathematical function, leading to
several orders faster, more effective analysis. Third, I will present a
principled foundation for expressing program analyses. The new perspective
is to question widely-held folk wisdom by searching for a precise analysis
formalism, leading to linear-conjunctive language reachability, a new
analysis foundation that offers several orders of speedups and improved
precision.


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Biography:

Zhendong Su is a Professor in Computer Science and a Chancellor's Fellow
at the University of California, Davis.  He received his PhD in Computer
Science from the University of California, Berkeley.  His research focuses
on developing methodologies, practical techniques and tools for improving
software quality and programming productivity. His work has been
recognized with an EAPLS Best Paper Award, multiple ACM SIGSOFT
Distinguished Paper Awards, an OOPSLA Best Paper Award, a PLDI
Distinguished Paper Award, an ACM CACM Research Highlight recognition, an
NSF CAREER Award, a UC Davis College of Engineering Outstanding Faculty
Award, an IBM Software Quality Innovation Award, a Microsoft SEIF Award,
and a Google Faculty Award. He served as an Associate Editor for ACM
TOSEM, co-chaired the 2009 Static Analysis Symposium, program chaired the
2012 International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis, and program
co-chaired the 2016 International Symposium on the Foundations of Software
Engineering.