Re: [abc] nice paper! :)

I've put a new version at http://mustketeer.comlab/~pavel/paper.pdf .

- P

Chris Allan wrote:

>
> I can probably be of help with proofreading the paper - I spent a few
> of my teenage years proofreading academic papers/books for various
> people, so if nothing else can pick out spelling mistakes etc.
>
> It looks like I may have to spend most of tomorrow on a school
> visit/Access event, but if someone could email me a recent copy of the
> paper asap I'd be more than happy to cast a "fairly technical but not
> too involved" eye over it.
>
> Chris
>
> Oege de Moor wrote:
>
>>
>> On Tue, 28 Sep 2004, Prof. Laurie HENDREN wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I have read through the paper and made only very minor changes.
>>> I am very impressed with the paper. It is very professionaly done,
>>> with lots of related work (thanks Oege for all your research there!...
>>> I think it helps it be an AOSD paper rather than just a compiler paper)
>>
>>
>>
>> Erm. There are errors in that, like the fact that I missed the
>> public distribution of josh. Thanks to Ondrej for noting that,
>> and a little hint to everyone else to pick a random reference
>> and check that what I said is actually true!
>>
>>
>>> I don't see any major changes left to be made. Someone needs to
>>> design our "abc technical report latex format" so we can make
>>> the technical report version as soon as we submit the paper and
>>> then put it on the aspectbench.org web site and send copies to
>>> our friends. I would love to do it, but I seem to have a queue
>>> of "other papers" I am supposed to be working on.
>>
>>
>>
>> right, that would be nice.
>>
>>
>>> I guess we also need an official "last reader" who goes over
>>> it for a last time looking for typos. I am afraid I'm not so good
>>> at that any more .... I seem to have gained speed at the expense
>>> of accuracy ....
>>
>>
>>
>> Damien is doing a pass tonight.
>>
>> Personally I think it is worthwhile to spend tomorrow on making
>> a few more improvements:
>> a) check references (as suggested above, but also just the
>> details of publication venue etc)
>> b) look for further typos, obscurities etc.
>> c) run the whole thing through a spell checker
>>
>> A good technique (and I'm not joking here) is to read the
>> paper backwards at this stage. If you read it forwards, it
>> all goes "yeah, seen that before, obvious..." and you read what
>> you think, not what's written.
>>
>>
>>> Anyway, a job well done. I hope the "young guys" found this an
>>> interesting experience. Now we have to shift our focus to our
>>> release (I go to CASCON next Wednesday, and would love announce
>>> the real release then...) and we also have to work on writing the
>>> CC paper and doing the analysis stuff for the PLDI paper.
>>
>>
>>
>> I'm sorry, but I'm firmly of the opinion we're not ready for
>> a release. Quite understandably, after the IBM visit we have
>> slowed down a lot. Before we release, we should
>>
>> a) compile abc itself (so it is really possible to use aspects
>> for extension if people want to do that - it's not just
>> a fun meta-circular thing).
>>
>> b) compile atrack, or at least fix all the problems that
>> Ondrej has found
>>
>> c) pepper the source with javadoc. It is very sparse at
>> the moment, and I do not believe the source is of
>> use outside our team in its present form.
>>
>> While I'm really happy with how far we've got, it is a fact
>> that, even for a simple program like my ants viewer, there
>> were several things that needed fixing in abc before it could
>> be compiled. No pathological corner cases: a real program.
>> We have to have more confidence that abc won't break on
>> the first sizable example people try.
>>
>> Now of course we *could* race to bring out a release by CASCON,
>> and if we're lucky we'll get real users and umpteen bug reports
>> to fix that same week. Now we have to ask ourselves whether
>> that is the best use of a team that is going to drop in manpower
>> a lot as of next week, when term starts and several of the
>> Oxford gang have to go back (at least part-time :-))
>> to being undergrads.
>>
>> I think it is far more productive to get on quietly with
>> a-c) above, the CC paper, and most importantly with re-weaving.
>> That was the crucial idea that started all this in January;
>> it got lost in the development fever but fortunately Ondrej
>> insisted on getting back to it. We have to get it ready for
>> PLDI. The realisation of re-weaving will underlie lots of our
>> future plans, and it will be a big boost to our chances of
>> continuing the project if we have demonstrated it works. I
>> don't think a release would have the same impact.
>>
>> Sorry for a long email. Obviously it's important we make the
>> right strategic step now, with the very limited resources we've
>> got.
>>
>> -Oege
>>
>>
>>
>
Received on Wed Sep 29 00:42:30 2004