EECS Faculty Candidate Seminar #1 -- Gregor Richards, Purdue University Thursday, Feb. 6, 3:45PM, MK435 Title: Refinement of Web Software Motivated by Real-World Patterns Abstract: JavaScript is a highly popular, dynamic programming language. Although originally designed for small scripts, the scale of software written in JavaScript has grown, and with large-scale web applications has come demand for better analysis and software engineering tools. The tools, however, are frequently stifled by JavaScripts dynamicity. Reigning in JavaScripts more dynamic and inscrutable features yields maintainable, understandable code, which is then suitable for more powerful analyses. This talk discusses the Dynamics of JavaScript (DynJS) project, which has (1) studied how real-world programmers use JavaScript, (2) addressed the impact of these uses on analysis, and (3) produced tools and gradual typing extensions to JavaScript which allow dynamic code to be gradually made more maintainable, understandable and analyzable. In particular, tools for performance measurement and the elimination of eval will be discussed, as well as the LikeScript language, which extends JavaScript to add gradual (and optional) type annotations, allowing programmers to document their intent while retaining compatibility with existing client code. Bio: Gregor Richards is a graduating PhD student at Purdue Universitys Secure Software Systems lab. His work focuses on creating tools to study how programming languages are used in the wild and rectify problems found there. He aims to strike a balance between the pragmatism of highly dynamic languages and the reliability of static ones. He is additionally interested in the development of system software, in particular virtual machines. When not studying software, he plays the accordion. These activities infrequently overlap.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Feb 2014 16:59:56 +0000
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