ExCAPE Annual Report of Activities

ExCAPE proposes a novel approach to software design—computer augmented program engineering, in which a programmer and an automated program-synthesis tool collaborate to generate software that meets its specification. A programmer expresses her insights about the design using synthesis artifacts of different kinds such as programs that may contain ambiguities, declarative specifications of high-level requirements, positive and negative examples of desired behaviors, and optimization criteria for selecting among alternative implementations. The synthesis tool composes these different views about the structure and functionality of the system into a unified concrete implementation using a combination of algorithmic techniques such as decision procedures for constraint-satisfaction problems, iterative schemes for abstraction and refinement, and data-driven learning. Our goal is to develop the theory and practice of the proposed approach into a transformative software design paradigm with the promise of a more reliable software at a lower cost. To achieve this goal, our team brings together expertise in theoretical foundations (computer-aided verification, control theory, program analysis), design methodology (human-computer interaction, model-based design, programming environments), and applications (distributed protocols, networked systems, robotics, programming for mobile platforms, and personalized education). Progress during the third year of the Expeditions is discussed in this report, which is organized along the research themes of design methodology (Section 2), computational engines (Section 3), challenge problems (Section 4), tools and infrastructure (Section 5), and education and outreach (Section 6). The list below summarizes and highlights some key advances that would not have been possible without collaboration among the diverse group of PIs.