Third JML Spec-a-thon, November 2010

The Third JML Spec-a-thon is scheduled to be held on campus at IT University of Copenhagen (ITU) from Monday, 1 November 2010 to Friday, 5 November 2010. The exact schedule of activities is still under consideration.

The Third JML Spec-a-thon is a continuation of the Second JML Spec-a-thon held in November 2010 at University College Dublin and the Inaugural JML Spec-a-thon held in May 2009 at the University of Washington Tacoma. The main focus for all Spec-a-thons is on writing good, usable specifications for many of the modern Java core classes that presently lack them. In OpenJML and JML4c, we finally have JML compilers that can take full advantage of generics and the other new language features introduced over the last several years, but the vast majority of available specs are still for Java 1.4 classes, lacking both generics and new APIs. Addressing this situation will help make JML more attractive to developers and more suitable for use in coursework.

The last Spec-a-thon had several super-short talks given by participants in the morning on their current work, available tools, techniques in specification writing, and more. The balance of the day, and often into the night, participants worked as individuals and in small groups on new tools, specifications, and documentation, gave tutorials to each other, and more. For some participants, some of each day also focused on "pair specification writing," which is basically a wacky combination of an OpenBSD Hackathon and formal methods "extreme programming".

A secondary focus of Spec-a-thons is on setting community-wide goals for the coming year in JML-related tool development and research. Continued face-to-face coordination of the goals of the JML community can only be helpful.

The Third JML Spec-a-thon is supported by a Formal Methods Europe Small Projects award. We anticipate that this support will allow us to offer travel subsidies to attendees (exact amounts to be determined, but most likely in the $200 to $500 range, similar to the previous two Spec-a-thons).

There are currently 7 registered attendees (including the organizers). If you are interested in registering, email jmlspecs dash specathon at lists dot sourceforge dot net.

Information about local accommodations (not yet complete), an attendee list and the event schedule (not yet available) can be found on dedicated pages.