APSEC06 - XIII Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference

Title :Beyond Vacuity in Component-Based Software (Engineering)

Abstract : The adjective phrase "Component-Based" is meaningless when applied to "Software," or, more to the point in my talk, to "Software Engineering." Put simply, the phrase introduces no distinct quality, and as such is quite without meaning--it is vacuous. Of course, we are free to assign any meaning to "component-based." There is certainly no shortage of assigned meanings found in the literature. Some people think "component-based" will ultimately achieve the same ontological status as "object-oriented" or other similarly received terms; they argue that any proliferation of disjoint or conflicting meanings is merely a reflection of technology immaturity. I think this argument fails to accommodate the central role that "component" plays as a mental construct in problem solving, and therefore in software development and in software engineering. In this talk I explain why the question "What is a component?" can be maddeningly naive or profound, depending on how it is approached. I will describe how we can construct a fundamental research agenda for component based software engineering that can give meaning to "component-based" without requiring the adoption of absurdly concrete definitions at one extreme or incorrigibly vague ruminations at the other. I will show how some parts of this research agenda are already falling into place to address many of the practical problems of software quality that confront software designers and developers today

Biography: Kurt Wallnau is a senior member of the technical staff at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), Carnegie Mellon University, USA. Mr. Wallnau currently leads a research initiative that is developing technologies for obtaining objective and certifiable confidence in the behavior of software components and in their assemblies. Other current research interests and activities include proof-carrying code and algorithmic mechanism design for ultra-large-scale systems. He previously led SEI research in the development of systems from predominantly commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software, which led to the aptly named Addison-Wesley book, Building Systems from Commercial Components. Prior to coming to the SEI, Mr. Wallnau was a staff research scientist with (what is now) Lockheed Martin, where he was system architect for a knowledge-based software composition system based on the KL-ONE family of semantic networks. Mr. Wallnau graduated summa cum laude with a BS in Computer Science from Villanova University in 1985 and has been pursuing his PhD in fits and starts ever since. His advisor is Prof. Ivica Crnkovic, Mälardalen University, Sweden.

KEYNOTE DAY -2

Keynote Speaker : Dr. Sriram Rajamani, Senior Researcher and Research Manager with Microsoft Research India, Bangalore

Title :Automatic property checking for software: past, present and future

Abstract :Over the past few years, we have seen several automatic static analysis tools being developed and deployed in industrial-strength software development. I will survey several of these tools ranging from heuristic and scalable analysis tools (such as PREFix, PREFast and Metal), to sound analysis tools based on counter example driven refinement (such as SLAM). Then, I will present recent developments in combining static analysis with testing techniques.

Biography:Sriram Rajamani is a Senior Researcher and Research Manager with Microsoft Research India, Bangalore. Prior to moving to the India lab, Sriram was most recently manager of the Software Productivity Tools group in Microsoft Research, Redmond. Sriram has a PhD in Computer Science from UC Berkeley. Sriram has worked as a programmer for over five years writing telecommunication software (for Syntek Inc) and electronic design automation software (for Xilinx Inc).

KEYNOTE DAY -3

Title: Near Term Challenges for Software Engineering Research

Keynote Panel
This is a keynote-panel. In this keynote, we have invited senior CTO-level people from major software companies in India to talk about the software engineering challenges they see from their company's perspective, in the near future. In a sense, this is a the agenda for research from the practitioning organization's perspective.

Panelist :
1. Gautam Shroff, TCS India

As Vice President, Technology Programs, Tata Consultancy Services, Dr. Shroff is responsible for defining technology joint business-R&D programs across TCS, recommending directions to existing R&D efforts, spawning new R&D efforts (internal or external) and proliferating the resulting technology and intellectual property across TCS' core businesses. Additionally he also heads TCS' Technology Innovation Lab (http://www.ilab-tcs.com), which focuses on applied research in open architectures, grid computing, service oriented computing, semantic computing and human computer interfaces.

2. Mr.Anand Vaishampayan, IBM

Anand Vaishampayan is a Mechanical Engineer by education, having obtained his Masters degree from Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, one of India's premier technical schools. He has over 19 years of experience in Application Development and Maintenance arena. Almost all of this experience comes from serving customers outside India, in the form of Software Services Exports. Having worked as the Industry Executive for Telecom and Media in his immediately preceding role, currently he is the Head of Quality and Processes for Global Delivery at IBM India.

3. Subu Goparaju, Infosys

Subu Goparaju is Vice President and Head of Software Engineering and Technology Labs at Infosys Technologies Ltd. He has been with Infosys for the last 18 years. Goparaju has spent more than a decade in IT consulting, project management and solution delivery management. His key focus areas for study include technology management, R&D in the context of software services. He is a member of the Management Council of the company and manages the company's Technology Council. He received a Bachelor of Engineering (BE) degree from Karnataka Regional Engineering College Suratkal (now, NIT Suratkal) in 1988.

4. Erik Kaashoek, Philips