Seminars & Meetings | Abstracts

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Levine 307, 307 Levine Hall,
1st talk:   1:30 pm to 3 pm
2nd talk:   4:30 pm to 6 pm


Paul E. Black
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
 1st Talk: Static Analysis and Static Analyzers in Software Development

Abstract:

Quality must be designed into and built into software. Nevertheless testing (dynamic analysis) and static analyzers have roles in delivering excellent software. Dr. Black will describe what static analysis is (and isn't) and compare it in general with testing. Then he will talk about the dimensions of static analysis: universality, rigor, and subject matter, and concepts related to static analysis and their results. Dr. Black will also share his views of the state of the art in static analyzers, citing results from the 2008, 2009, and 2010 Static Analysis Tool Expositions and other work. Finally he will end with suggestions on how best static analysis might be incorporated into software development. Somewhere along the way he will tell you a little about what NIST is, what it's like to work there, and possible opportunities for YOU.

2nd Talk: Combinatorial Testing

Abstract:

Studies suggest that nearly all software errors are triggered by the interaction of no more than six parameters. If so, testing all n-way combinations of parameters should provide high confidence that nearly all faults have been discovered. This combinatorial testing is already used by dozens of companies. Dr. Black will explain what combinatorial testing is and how to apply it to different situations. Given 10 binary variables, can you exercise all triples with fewer than 20 tests? He refers to free software available to generate such "covering arrays" for combinations of parameter values. He will also talk about approaches to the testing oracle problem which automatic test generation raises.

Bio:
Dr. Black has nearly 20 years of industrial experience in areas such as developing software for IC design and verification, assuring software quality, and managing business data processing. He is now a Computer Scientist at NIST and leads the SAMATE project. The web site he began and edits, the on-line Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures, is accessed almost 20,000 times a day from all over the world. He works in the Systems and Software Division of the Information Technology Laboratory.

Dr. Black earned a B.S. in Physics and Mathematics in 1973 and an M.S. in Computer Science in 1983. He began his Ph.D. at UC Berkeley, then transferred to Brigham Young University where he graduated in 1998. Dr. Black has been active in the formal methods research community, and has served as a reviewer for DAC (Design Automation Conference) for several years. He has taught classes at Brigham Young University and Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Black has published in the areas of static analysis, software testing, software configuration control, networks and queuing analysis, formal methods, software verification, quantum computing, and computer forensics. He is a member of ACM, IEEE, and the IEEE Computer Society.