[Colloq] Defense: Automating Abstract Interpretation of Abstract Machines, Monday, March 30, 4pm, WVH 366

[DiFazio, Danielle]

Topic: Thesis defense
Title: Automating Abstract Interpretation of Abstract Machines
Speaker: J. Ian Johnson
Date: Monday, March 30
Time: 4:00pm-5:00pm

Location: WVH366

Abstract:
Static program analysis is a valuable tool for any programming language that people write programs in.
The prevalence of scripting languages in the world suggests programming language interpreters are relatively easy to write.
Users of these languages lament their inability to analyze their code, therefore programming language analyzers (abstract interpreters) are not easy to write.
My thesis more deeply investigates a systematic method of creating abstract interpreters from traditional interpreters, called Abstracting Abstract Machines.

I show that simple and systematic changes to the mathematical presentation of abstract machines translate to code that quickly and precisely approximates the semantics.
I then present a language for abstract machines that bakes in the lessons learned from the systematic yet by-hand techniques I designed.

Committee:
- David Van Horn
- Olin Shivers
- Mitch Wand
- Cormac Flanagan (University of California Santa Cruz)