Semantics-Based Program Integration

这个奖项是为了奖励在交互式计算机编程工具的设计和实现方面的持续研究。具体来说，支持是继续威斯康星计划整合项目正在进行的研究，该项目目前由美国国家科学基金会在PYI拨款DCR-8552602下支持。该项目的目标是开发一种基于语义的程序集成工具。程序集成是指当程序的源代码分化成多个变体（例如，支持不同的特性、不同的操作系统，或者合并不同的错误修复）时必须经历的合并过程。基于语义的程序集成意味着工具必须确定为创建变体而对基本程序所做的更改是否具有不希望的语义交互。（因为诸如程序等价之类的问题是不可确定的，所以集成系统必须使用安全近似于此类不可确定问题的技术。）该研究探索了创建一个系统的方法，该系统可以测试一个基本程序的几个不同但相关的变体是否相互干扰，如果没有干扰，则自动将它们合并为一个综合了它们各自功能的通用版本。

This award is for continued research on the design and implementation of tools for interactive computer programming. Specifically, support is to continue the research being carried out by the Wisconsin Program-Integration Project, which is currently supported by the National Science Foundation under PYI grant DCR-8552602. The goal of the project is the development of a tool for semantics-based program integration. By program integration is meant the merging process that one has to go through when a program's source code diverges into multiple variants (supporting different features, different operating systems, or incorporating different bug-fixes, for example). Semantics-based program integration means that the tool must determine whether the changes that were made to the base program to create the variants have undesirable semantic interactions. (Becuase problems such as program equivalence are undecidable, an integration system must use techniques that are safe approximations to such undecidable problems.) The research explores ways to create a system that tests whether several different, but related, variants of a base program interfere, and, if there is no interference, automatically merges tham into a common version that combines their separate features.