Frontiers Panel

Frontiers Panel will be held between 12.00 - 13.00 on 25th September.     Moderator: Massimiliano Di Penta

Title: Knitting Music and Programming: Reflections on the Frontiers of Source Code Analysis - Nicolas Gold

Panel Members: Ira Baxter, Nicolas Gold, and Lori Pollock

Abstract:

Frontier areas present new and exciting opportunities for research. The prevalence of such areas within source code analysis has been recognized only recently, see for example Mark Harman: “Why Source Code Analysis and Manipulation Will Always be Important” in Proceedings of the 10th IEEE Working Conference on Source Code Analysis and Manipulation, pp. 7-19, 2010. For this panel, we identify two specific types of research areas as “frontier areas of SCAM”. The first is the “out” areas in which SCAM techniques are applied to other domains like music, law, etc. The second is the “in” areas where foreign approaches are applied to source code, which have not been traditionally treated as SCAM topics. As an example, consider analysis techniques that rely on data mining or genetic algorithms, which have recently appeared at SCAM.

In this panel, we would like to discuss whether it is useful (and/or interesting) to consciously place more emphasis on these areas, and if so, what are those interesting topics that could be subjects for future research studies? We will investigate some existing examples, and based on those evaluate the difficulties one might encounter, for example the adaptation complexity of a foreign method, or the difficulty of reaching potentially interested researchers from other domains.

Our panelists will express their opinion on the topic, and we would like to involve SCAM attendants in this joint brainstorming as well, as actively as possible. The panel will feature an invited keynote Nicolas Gold who will elaborate on the analysis of musical notation, musical performance and other interesting topics. The panelists also include Lori Pollock and Ira Baxter with Massimiliano di Penta moderating.

We will reward the best research topic suggestions from the audience, and the attendants will be asked to write down their thoughts, so please start thinking about frontier areas now!