Lambda the Ultimate

Even if you are not technically a scientist, as a reader of LtU you probably merit badge #24.

Scalable Statistical Bug Isolation, Ben Liblit, Mayur Naik, Alice X. Zheng, Alex Aiken, Michael I. Jordan.

We present a statistical debugging algorithm that isolates bugs in programs containing multiple undiagnosed bugs. Earlier statistical algorithms that focus solely on identifying predictors that correlate with program failure perform poorly when there are multiple bugs. Our new technique separates the effects of different bugs and identifies predictors that are associated with individual bugs. These predictors reveal both the circumstances under which bugs occur as well as the frequencies of failure modes, making it easier to prioritize debugging efforts. Our algorithm is validated using several case studies, including examples in which the algorithm identified previously unknown, significant crashing bugs in widely used systems.

This work is reminiscent of Daikon.

Pico Lisp: A Radical Approach to Application Development describes a minimalist Lisp interpreter which has been used to build real applications for ~20 years. If you ignore the tendency toward self-aggrandizing, there's some food for thought here. Pico Lisp only has native support for symbols, integers, and lists (no arrays, no structures), and is implemented as a straightfoward interpreter. Yet in the benchmarks (usual disclaimers here), Pico Lisp fares well against a compiled Lisp. Is there a case to be made for ultra lean and mean interpreters as a viable alternative to compilers?