Despite decades of progress, software remains notoriously unreliable and difficult to maintain. In this talk, I argue that the core challenge is what I call the specification crisis—the pervasive lack of precise, intended behaviors for software. I will explain how this fundamental obstacle drives the ongoing software crisis and why addressing it head-on as a community—both academia and industry—is critical for building reliable and secure software.

Zhendong Su is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at ETH Zurich. He is passionate about fundamental and practical innovations for building software. His research spans programming languages and compilers, software engineering, computer security, deep learning, and education technologies. He is a Member of the Academia Europaea, a Fellow of the ACM and of the IEEE, and participates in the ACM Distinguished Speaker program.