Re: [abc] nice paper! :)

http://musketeer.comlab.ox.ac.uk/~pavel/paper.pdf anyway.

- P

Pavel Avgustinov wrote:

> 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
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
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>
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Received on Wed Sep 29 00:42:33 2004