Re: GSoC

[David Malcolm <dmalcolm@redhat.com>]

Hi Isitha (and Philip!)

If I'm reading Isitha's email correctly, it talks about static
analysis, whereas Philip's talks about GCC Rust, so some wires got
crossed somewhere.

I'm the author of the GCC static analysis pass.  I should confess that
I still feel like I'm learning static analysis myself - I too own a
copy of the Nielson, Nielson & Hankin book you mention, but have only
skimmed it.  FWIW, I find the very early papers by Patrick and Radhia
Cousot from the beginning of the field much easier to read, as they
take more time spelling out the meaning of the mathematics.  I should
also confess that the analysis pass takes some liberties compared to a
formal approach, grabbing ideas from here and there, plugging them into
30+-year-old codebase in a way that I hope is a reasonable trade-off
between speed, (lack of) soundness, (lack of) completeness, and
readability of output by end-user.

The static analysis pass is meant to be reasonably modular, so the
various suggested projects listed on the wiki page ought to be
implementable without knowing everything all at once.

However, as Philip says, GSoC imposes a particular timeline, and I
don't know to what extent might be a dealbreaker.

Hope this is helpful
Dave

On Fri, 2021-03-19 at 13:24 +0000, Philip Herron wrote:
> Hi Isitha,
> 
> Thanks for your interest in GCC Rust, it's an exciting project that
> is
> early on in development, so there is plenty of scoping for making
> your mark
> on the compiler. In regards to your proposal feel free to join our
> Zulip
> server https://gcc-rust.zulipchat.com/ and it can be discussed with
> the
> community.
> 
> As for the Google Summer of Code timeline, I would have to defer to
> their
> rules. Maybe others here know better in this mailing list but as far
> as I
> know, to complete the google summer of code there are dated
> milestones of
> review so this might break the rules if you have exams and are unable
> to
> allocate the time towards it.
> 
> Hope this helps, I hope it works out for you.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> --Phil
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, 19 Mar 2021 at 08:04, Isitha Subasinghe via Gcc
> <gcc@gcc.gnu.org>
> wrote:
> 
> > To whom it may concern,
> > 
> > I am a student interested in participating in GSoC this year. After
> > having
> > a look at some of the available PL projects, gccrs caught my
> > attention. I
> > love Rust and have an interest in exploring more about type theory
> > and
> > automatic garbage collection.
> > 
> > My background is that I am a Masters's student at the University of
> > Melbourne in Australia, I have undertaken a graduate-level compiler
> > class
> > where we implemented a stack-based compiler in Haskell.
> > 
> > I am quite interested in working on the static analysis project but
> > wanted
> > feedback to iron out and address my proposal before I submit it.
> > 
> > I am quite confident in my C/C++ skills but somewhat unsure about
> > the level
> > of knowledge of static analysis that I would need. Unfortunately, I
> > am yet
> > to take any classes in this particular subfield but I am absolutely
> > happy
> > to learn on my own time and have purchased the book Principles of
> > Program
> > Analysis to assist with this matter.
> > 
> > Also, I did want to notify you that I would be available for less
> > than the
> > entire coding duration of GSoC due to university commitments.
> > Unfortunately, my exams overlap with GSoC, and it is hard to
> > compromise on
> > University studies since I am hoping to do a PhD in PL after the
> > completion
> > of my master's. I would be absolutely happy to make up this time at
> > the end
> > of the year where I have a 3-month break.
> > 
> > Best Regards,
> > Isitha
> > 
>