CS 6304 Program Analysis and its Applications 
Fall 2015 
Barbara G. Ryder

This seminar course will explore both seminal and specialist papers
in static and dynamic program analyses, with emphasis on use of these
analyses in modern software tools.  Special emphasis will be placed on
tools for Java and JavaScript as examples of object-oriented languages
and scripting languages with dynamic typing. Key application areas are
testing, debugging, program understanding and performance diagnosis.

The class sessions will vary with some introductory lectures followed by
student-prepared presentations.  Most of the material explored with be in
research papers; all students will be expected to prepare an annotated
bibliography which will be part of the final grade in the course. A
draft  reading list for the course will be published later in the summer.

Suggested background for students taking the course includes (i)
familiarity with compilation (i.e., internal representations of programs
and code) and data structures (e.g., rooted directed graphs, abstract
syntax trees); (ii) knowledge of the object-oriented programming
paradigm. Some background in software engineering (i.e., testing
techniques, debugging) will be helpful as well.