Hi,

In Com S 641 (Semantics of Programming Languages) this coming
semester, we will focus on an exciting area in programming language
semantics that intersects with formal methods and software
engineering: program analysis.  We will use the book
"Principles of Program Analysis", by Flemming Nielson, Hanne Riis
Nielson, and Chris Hankin (Springer-Verlag, 1999).  This book
emphasizes the commonality between the different kinds of analysis,
which include: data flow analysis, constraint-based analysis, abstract
interpretation, and type and effect systems.

Although in some ways this may be more a more "applied" focus from
other offerings of Com S 641, it will still be largely theoretical and
will still cover such concepts as sturctural operational semantics and
type systems.  Students will do exercises mostly on paper.  (There
will not be any large programming projects, although some small
programming exercises in Haskell or a Prolog variant, like lambda
Prolog, may be used to explicate and make precise some of the semantic
ideas.)

In addition to the book, we plan to present some more recent ideas in
this area, especially the idea of counterexample guided abstraction
refinement, which has been used to great effect in such systems as
Microsoft Research's SLAM system and and Berkeley's BLAST system.

The course will be small and there will be ample opportunity for
interaction.  The prerequisites for 641 are technically Com S 531 and
Com S 541.  If you don't meet these prerequisites and would like to take
the class anyway, please see me and we can discusss it.

Some details on past offering of Com S 641 (Semantics of Programming
Languages) are found at the URL:

   http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~leavens/ComS641.html

Note that there is currently no more information available on the 2006
offering. 

The class will be meeting MWF from 3:10-4pm in 1120 Sweeney.

// The course is listed with meeting times "to be arranged".  I will
// arrange the schedule to suit the students in the class, so don't worry
// about schedule conflicts.  (If you do sign up for the course, please
// send me your time schedule when it is finalized for the semester.)

I'm happy to answer any questions you might have about the course also.
Stop by to see me or send me an email if you have questions.  Thanks,

        Gary T. Leavens
        Department of Computer Science, Iowa State University
        229 Atanasoff Hall, Ames, Iowa 50011-1041 USA
        http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~leavens  phone: +1-515-294-1580