This page summarizes my research work in computer science. (But actually, I’ve been working on other things recently.)

My research focus in computer science has been the problem of analyzing object-oriented programs to find binary relations on program variables. These relations can be used by the compiler to justify a variety of optimizations, and can also be used by the programmer to improve code understanding. Class-invariant binary relations are especially important in object-oriented programs, and I developed a method for identifying them.  My research prototype is a system that analyzes Java bytecode to identify class invariants.

Computing Publications

Webber, Adam Brooks. Modern Programming Languages: A Practical Introduction.   2nd ed.  Franklin, Beedle & Associates, Inc., 2010.  (First edition, 2003.)

Webber, Adam Brooks. Formal Language: A Practical Introduction. Franklin, Beedle & Associates, Inc., 2007.

Webber, Adam Brooks. What is a class invariant? In: Proceedings of the 2001 ACM SIGPLAN – SIGSOFT Workshop on Program Analysis for Software Tools and Engineering (PASTE ’01), (Snowbird, Utah, June 18-19, 2001), pp. 86-89. Author version.

Webber, Adam Brooks. Program analysis using binary relations. In: Proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN ’97 Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation, (Las Vegas, Nevada, June 15-18, 1997), pp. 249-260. Definitive copy. Author version, © 1997 ACM, Inc., included here by permission; the author version may not be redistributed.

Webber, Adam Brooks. The Pascal Trainer. In: Proceedings of the twenty-seventh SIGCSE technical symposium on computer science education, (SIGCSE ’96, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Feb. 15-18, 1996), pp. 261-265. Definitive copy. Author version, © 1996 ACM, Inc., included here by permission; the author version may not be redistributed.

Webber, Adam Brooks. Fluent Pascal: The Pascal Trainer Laboratory Guide. ISBN 0-07-068834-6. McGraw-Hill, 1996.

Webber, Adam Brooks. Proof of the interval satisfiability conjecture. Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence, 15(II), 1995, pp. 231-238. Author version.

Webber, Adam Brooks. Optimization of functional programs by grammar thinning. ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems, 17(2), Mar. 1995, pp. 293-339. Definitive copy. Author version, © 1995 ACM, Inc., included here by permission; the author version may not be redistributed.

Webber, Adam Brooks. Principled optimization of functional programs, extended abstract. In: Proceedings of the Fifth International Workshop on Graph Grammars and their Application to Computer Science, (Williamsburg, Virginia, Nov. 13-18, 1994), pp. 224-229.

Webber, Adam Brooks. Principled optimization of functional programs. Ph.D. thesis, Cornell University, Aug. 1993.  UMI number 9406123.

Webber, Adam Brooks. A formal definition of unnecessary computation in functional programs. Technical report TR 92-1260, Cornell University, Jan. 1992.

Webber, Adam Brooks. Relational constraint: a fast semantic analysis technique. Technical report TR 92-1319, Cornell University, Dec. 1992.

Webber, Adam Brooks. Thinning context-free languages. Technical Report TR 92-1318, Cornell University, Dec. 1992.

Invited Talks

Program analysis using binary relations.  Computer science seminar.  University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, December 8, 2000.

Analysis of class invariant binary relations.  Dagstuhl Seminar on Program Analysis.  Hanne Riis Nielson and Mooly Sagiv, eds.  Schloss Dagstuhl, Wadern, Germany.  Apr. 12-16, 1999.  Seminar No. 99151, Report No. 236.

 

Research Grants

Class-invariant assertions in object-oriented programs. NSF grant CCR-0073070, $187,272. Oct. 1, 2000 to Sept. 30, 2003.

A trainer for rudimentary algorithmic fluency. NSF grant DUE-9653269, $148,246. Mar. 1, 1997 to Feb. 29, 2000.