SPEAKER: Dr. Ira D. Baxter

ABSTRACT: Program Transformation Systems are software tools that modify other software source programs. They are essentially generalized compilers, in which the various compiler parts can be customized to achieve a surprisingly wide variety of useful automated changes to source code. This leverage ensures that program transformation systems are destined to become a standard part every programmer’s stable of tools, just like editors, compilers, and design tools. This talk will very briefly sketch DMS, a commercial program transformation system, and will discuss several real applications. It will provide sufficient technical background for software engineers to understand the basics of program transformations. We will show how program transformations can be used to implement three very different applications: implementing test coverage tools for any language, detecting and removing the typically 10% duplicate code in large systems, and automated translation of one programming language to another.