Software engineering

Concurrency/verification positions at Politecnico di Milano

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As part of the continuation of the ERC Advanced Investigator Grant project “Concurrency Made Easy” (started at ETH Zurich, see the project pages at cme.ethz.ch), I have positions at Politecnico di Milano for: Postdocs (having a doctoral degree) Research associates (officially: “Assegno di Ricerca”, with the requirement of having a master degree), which can lead … Read more




LASER summer school on software for robotics: last call for registration

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Much of the progress in robotics is due to software advances, and software issues remain at the heart of the formidable challenges that remain. The 2017 LASER summer school, held in September in Elba, brings together some of the most prestigious international experts in the area. The LASER school has established itself as one of … Read more




Feature interactions, continued

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Microsoft Office tools offer  features for (1) spelling correction and (2) multi-language support. They are not very good at working together, another example of the perils of feature interaction. Spelling correction will by default when misspelled, but in the case of common misspellings known to the tools it will simply correct words without bothering the … Read more




The perils of feature interaction

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One of the most delicate aspects of design is feature interaction. As users, we suffer daily from systems offering features that individually make sense but clash with each other. In my agile book [1] I explained in detail, building on the work of Pamela Zave, why this very problem makes one of the key ideas … Read more




Об опыте иностранца, говорящего по-русски

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Когда-то очень давно великий советский ученый Андрей Петрович Ершов мне рассказал следующий анекдот. Действие происходит в московском метро. Стоит бабушка, а за ней высокий студент из Университета Имени Патрицы Лумумбы. Он стучит ей по плечу, она поворачивает голову, видит его, вскрикивает (она никогда в жизни не видела Африканца), и падает в обморок. Другие пассажиры успокаивают … Read more




The mythical Brooks law

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(First published on the CACM blog.) A book by Laurent Bossavit [1] lists what he calls “leprechauns” of software engineering: pearls of conventional wisdom that do not necessarily survive objective analysis. Whether or not we agree with him on every specific example, his insights are fruitful and the general approach commendable: it is healthy to … Read more




Software for robotics: LASER summer school, Elba Island, 9-17 September

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The LASER summer school, now in its 13th edition, will take place this September (postponed from last year). The theme is new for the school, and timely: software for robotics. Below is the announcement. The school site is here. Full announcement: The 2017 LASER summer school will be devoted to Software for Robotics. It takes … Read more




The longest flight

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The Orbitz page for booking a flight itinerary has an interesting menu option: Longest duration? If you find that the direct route is too short, you can always add a stop in Vladivostok. Under a few basic assumptions it has to be a theorem that, given any itinerary from A to B, there exists a … Read more




AutoProof workshop: Verification As a Matter of Course

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The AutoProof technology pursues the goal of “Verification As a Matter Of Course”, integrated into the EVE development environment. (The AutoProof  project page here; see particularly the online interactive tutorial.) A one-day workshop devoted to the existing AutoProof and current development will take place on October 1 near Toulouse in France. It is an informal … Read more