Com S 641 meeting -*- Outline -*-

* The Nature of Program Analysis (1.1)

** goals
  Q: What are the goals of program analysis?

     "predicting safe and compatible approximations to the set of values
     or behaviors arising dynamically"

     - avoiding redundant computations
     - avoiding superfluous computations
     - software validation

** ideas
  Q: What are the main ideas of program analysis?

     - providing approximate answers (a larger set of possible behaviors)
     - safe approximations (all actual behaviors included)
     - semantics based (prove correct with respect to language's semantics)

  Q:  What's the difference between a semantics-based approach and
      a semantics-directed approach?
        Use the semantics but don't structure the analysis based
          on the form of the semantics.
      
** applications

  Q:  What other areas, besides optimizing compilers, could the ideas
      and goals of program analysis usefully be applied?