Automated Performance Analysis

  • Florian Zuleger | Technical University of Vienna

In this talk I will present two ongoing research projects: First, I will discuss a simple and scalable static analysis for resource bound and amortized complexity analysis. Our analysis is solely based on the abstract program model of lossy vector addition systems and does not require general purpose reasoners such as abstract interpreters, software model checkers or computer algebra tools. We experimentally demonstrate on a recent bound analysis benchmark that our analysis is nevertheless able to compute more loop bounds in less time than several state-of-the-art tools from the literature.

Second, I will speak about feedback generation for performance problems in introductory programming assignments. Studying a large number of functionally correct student solutions we have observed only a small number of different algorithmic strategies, which, however, can be implemented in numerous different ways. I will present a light-weight programming language extension, that allows a teacher to specify these strategies, and a dynamic analysis, that allows to match the specifications of the teacher against student implementations.

Speaker Details

Florian Zuleger is an assistant professor at the Technical University of Vienna, where he obtained his PhD under the supervision of Helmut Veith. He is interested in static and dynamic approaches to program analysis and in applying automata theory and logic in verification. His current research focuses on termination and bound analysis, shape analysis, and automated grading for online courses.

Series: Microsoft Research Talks