Volume 39, Number 6 Published by the Association for Computing Machinery November 2014 Special Interest Group on Software Engineering SOFTWARE ENGINEERING notes TABLE OF CONTENTS LETTERS 1 From the Chair: If I Only Had a Brain – Will Tracz 2 From the Editor – Michael Wing 3 Top 10 Downloaded Articles 4 Top 10 Most Cited Articles 5 Bill Riddle, Past ACM SIGSOFT Chair, Dies – Jack Wileden 5 CAPS Award for ASE 2014 – Breno Miranda 6 CAPS ASE Experience – Tony Ohmann 6 New Guide to Computer Science Degrees – Dan Schuessler COLUMNS 6 Passages – Alex Groce 8 Surfing the Net for Software Engineering Notes – Mark Doernhoefer 17 Risks to the Public – Peter G. Neumann and contributors REPORTS & PAPERS 23 The list of Reports is found on page 3 28 The list of Papers is found on page 3 WORKSHOP & CONFERENCES 29 Calendar of Events – Daniela Castelluccia 32 ICSE 2015 38 FSE 2014 Software Engineering Notes is an informal publication of the ACM Special Interest Group on Software Engineering (SIGSOFT) concerned with the cost- effective, timely development and maintenance of high-quality software. Relevant topics include requirements, specification, design and implementation methods, software maintenance, reuse, and re-engineering, quality assurance, measurement and evaluation, software processes, automated tools, and practical experience, etc. SIGSOFT seeks to address research and development issues in these areas and to provide a common ground for both, through sponsorship of conferences, symposia and workshops, the publication of SEN, and the dissemination of information via the SIGSOFT member email distribution list. sponsors an annual conference, Foundations of Software Engineering www.sigsoft.org/SEN/ SIGSOFT (FSE), in the Fall and co-sponsors the International Conference of Software SIGSOFT EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Engineering (ICSE) in the Spring, in addition to sponsoring several workshops and symposia each year on specialized and timely topics. CHAIR: Will Tracz, Owego, NY 13827, <[email protected]> Material for publication in SEN should be submitted to the editor electronically as a .txt, .doc, or .tex file. Paper and reports should use the LaTeX or Word format VICE CHAIR: Laura K. Dillon, Dept. of CS&E, Michigan State available at http://www.acm.org/sigsoft/SEN/subpub.html. CFPs and Advance University, 3115 Engineering Building, East Lansing, Programs for SIGSOFT sponsored or in cooperation events may be submitted as MI 48824, +1-517-353-4387 (work), .pdf files with all fonts embedded. Because only the abstracts of papers and <[email protected]> reports will appear in the print issue of SEN, authors should review their abstract to make sure it reflects the key points addressed in the document, which will SECRETARY/TREASURER: Gail C. Murphy, Department of Computer Science, appear in full in the ACM Digital Library. University of British Columbia, 2366 Main Mall, Submissions in the form of letters, abstracts, book reviews, specialized Vancouver BC Canada V6T 1Z4, +1-604-822-5169, <[email protected]> bibliographies, notices, news reports, etc. are all welcome. All contributions are considered personal rather than organizational; technical contributions are AT-LARGE MEMBERS: considered as unrefereed working papers. Authors should note that by Frances Paulisch, Siemens AG, Corporate submitting an article for distribution in SEN they grant to ACM the following Technology, Otto-Hahn-Ring 6, D-80200 Munich, Germany, <[email protected]> non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide rights: • to publish in print on condition of acceptance by the editor Frank Tip, Samsung Research America 1732 N. First Street, 6th Floor • to digitize and post your article in the electronic version of this publication San Jose, CA 95112 • to include the article in the ACM Digital Library and in any Digital Library <[email protected]> related services Willem Visser, Stellenbosch University, South • to allow users to make a personal copy of the article for non-commercial, Africa, http://www.cs.sun.ac.za/~wvisser/ educational or research purposes However, as a contributing author, you retain copyright to your article and ACM MOST RECENT PAST CHAIR: will make every effort to refer requests for commercial use directly to you. David S. 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If you have written a work that has been INTERNATIONAL LIAISON: previously published by ACM in any journal or conference proceedings prior to Shing-Chi Cheung, Dept. of Computer Science 1978, or any SIG Newsletter at any time, and you do NOT want this work to and Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, appear in the ACM Digital Library, please inform [email protected], stating Hong Kong, +852 2358 7016, <[email protected]> the title of the work, the author(s), and where and when published. HISTORY LIAISON: Members wishing to participate in SIGSOFT activities may contact the Chair Tao Xie, Department of Computer Science, or Vice Chair. To join SIGSOFT, contact ACM, 2 Penn Plaza, Suite 701, New York, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 4237 Siebel Ctr., 201 N. Goodwin Ave., Urbana, IL 61801, NY 10121-0701, 1-212-869-7440. 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INFORMATION DIRECTOR: POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Software Engineering Notes, ACM, Greg Cooper, <[email protected]> 2 Penn Plaza, Suite 701, New York, NY 10121-0701. ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes Page 1 November 2014 Volume 39 Number 6 Certifiably Safe Software-dependent Systems, Engineering, Big Letter from the Chair Data, Software Engineering for Mobility, and Software Testing. 1 Another idea that is being hatched is the establishment of an If I Only Had a Brain ACM Policy for Retired Members. While this is still a work in Will Tracz progress, it would appear that recommendation will be to offer [email protected] membership and conference registration rates for retired members I could wile away the hours - Conferrin' with the flowers that are the same as student members. Consultin' with the rain. And my head I'd be scratchin' I'd unravel any riddle, for any individ'le, in trouble or in pain While my thoughts were busy hatchin' - If I only had a brain If you happened to read the September issue of SEN’s Letter What will Software Engineering be like in 10 years? from the Chair, your head may be scratching wondering if I am a This is the riddle I have been burning brain cells on, wondering Wizard of Oz fan. While the answer to that question is yes, I about the vector and velocity Software Engineering research and believe it is only a coincidence, as I have been consulting with practice is taking. Virtualization, big data, GPUs, scale, open colleagues on tons of SIGSOFT matters that made me question if source, IDEs, theorem provers, patterns, etc. – what, where and it was necessary – if I had a brain. when is the next disruptive technology/game changer? What research topics have reached the point of diminishing returns? What old research topics are now poised for advancement given Conferring/Conferencing FSE/ICSE For those of you not having the “pleasure/opportunity” of the progress in previously lacking technologies? Finally, what being part of a conference organizing committee and witnessing software engineering lessons learned are being re-discovered, re- first-hand the significant logistical effort required to plan a invented, or renamed by application domains searching for ways to leverage software in advancing their technology? conference, it may not come as a surprise to find out that it requires a lot of work. Easily there are thousands of emails that Oh, I would tell you why, the ocean's near the shore are exchanged; countless hours spent pouring over minute details necessary to have a successful conference2. I would like to thank, Awards? The good, bad and the ugly I could tell you why, we don’t get more submissions for our in advance, Shing-Chi Cheung from the Hong Kong University SIGSOFT awards (http://www.sigsoft.org/awards). Yes, it is of Science and Technology for his tireless efforts in organizing time for SIGSOFT to find worthy candidates for consideration. this year’s FSE (http://fse22.gatech.edu/). Needless to say, the Try as we may, there always seems to be a lack of submissions. venue required exponentially more coordination with service So if anyone has questions, don’t hesitate to contact me or our providers than most FSE’s. I will spare you details of the awards chair, Frank Tip progress Laurie Dillon at Michigan State University, the general (http://www.sigsoft.org/about/execComm.htm).