MODELS 2024 Keynotes

Joanne Atlee, University of Waterloo, Canada

Modelling and Analysis of Code

Faced with the goal of performing a system-wide analysis on large heterogeneous systems without the benefit of a system-wide model, we sought instead to derive models from code. The result is a suite of tools for (1) extracting from code, and other software artifacts, a lightweight graphical model of the software that is sufficiently detailed to support analyses of control flows, data flows, and software dependencies; (2) expressing diverse analyses of interest; (3) analyzing relatively large software models; and (4) and visualizing the analysis results. In this talk, we present the tools as well as our experiences in applying them to open-source software systems and to automotive software components and product-lines of components.

Biography

Dr. Joanne Atlee (P.Eng) is a Professor in the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, where she is the Director of Women in Computer Science and was the founding Director for the Software Engineering program. Her research interests include software requirements, software modelling, automated analysis of software models, modular software development, and the detection and resolution of feature interactions — applied to telephony and automotive software. She served as the General Chair of the 41st International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE’19), the co-Program Chair of the 31st International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE’09), and the Program Chair for the 13th IEEE Requirements Engineering Conference (RE'05). She is a member of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Working Group 2.9 on Software Requirements Engineering. She serves on the editorial boards of Software and Systems Modelling and ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology. She is an ACM Distinguished Scientist, the 2020 recipient of the IEEE CS TCSE Distinguished Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) Leadership Award, and the 2022 recipient of the ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Service Award.

Thomas Zimmermann, Microsoft

The Lord of the Models: The Fellowship of Trust in AI

In the realm of software, an AI revolution is afoot, transforming how we create and consume our digital world. In this keynote, I shall share initial observations on the evolution of software engineering and its profound impact on developer productivity and experience. Like the forging of powerful artifacts, AI-driven tools are reshaping development processes, bringing unprecedented efficiencies yet also presenting new trials. Central to this grand transformation is the vital role of trust in AI-based software tools. Understanding and nurturing this trust is paramount for their successful adoption and integration. Moreover, I will reveal why the MODELS community stands as a pivotal fellowship in this epic journey, guiding us through the challenges and triumphs of the AI age. Join us as we embark on this transformative quest, bridging trust, innovation, and productivity in the dawn of AI and software engineering.
(This text has been rephrased by the author using ChatGPT to reflect a different style while maintaining the original meaning and contents.)

Biography

Thomas Zimmermann is a Sr. Principal Researcher at Microsoft, where he works on cutting-edge research and innovation in data science, machine learning, software engineering, and digital games. He has over 15 years of experience in the field, with more than 100 publications that have been cited over 25,000 times. His research mission is to empower software developers and organizations to build better software and services with AI. He is best known for his pioneering work on systematic mining of software repositories and his empirical studies of software development in industry. He has contributed to several Microsoft products and tools, such as Visual Studio, GitHub, and Xbox. He is an ACM Fellow, an IEEE Fellow, recipient of the IEEE TCSE Edward J. McCluskey Technical Achievement award, and Co-Editor in Chief of the Empirical Software Engineering journal. He is the Chair of the ACM Special Interest Group on Software Engineering and a frequent committee member for top software engineering conferences.

Arie van Deursen, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands

Valuable Software Engineering

As software engineers, the value we bring to society lies in the software systems we construct, maintain, and operate. Ideally, we do this in a cost-effective and predictable manner. In reality, however, software projects have a reputation of being late and overly costly.

In this talk, I will reflect on this drawing from experiences in the financial and public sector. Within the former, I will look at agile software development at scale at ING, a global bank headquartered in The Netherlands. Based on years of historic data of around 300 agile software development teams at ING, I will reflect on effort estimation, on time delivery, delay, and team dynamics, at scale. I will contrast this with the public sector by looking at assessments of over 100 government IT projects, conducted by the Advisory Council on IT Assessment (AcICT) of the Dutch government over the past years. Here I will reflect on the assessment procedure and its outcomes, including the main types of risks identified (which may be technical or organizational) and the nature of the advice given (which can include project termination). Given the insights from the financial and public sector, I will conclude by sketching research directions in the areas of governance, predictable value delivery, and modeling.

Biography

Arie van Deursen is a professor in software engineering at Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands. His research interests include software testing, human aspects of software development, software portfolio management, and foundation models for software engineering. Based on his research, he co-founded two spin-off companies: The Software Improvement Group (2000) and PerfectXL (2015). He serves as scientific director of AI for Fintech Research (AFR), a collobaration between TU Delft and ING Bank (2020-2024); and of AI for Software Engineering (AI4SE), a collaboration between TU Delft and JetBrains (2024-2028). In 2022, he was appointed by the Dutch cabinet as member of the Advisory Council on IT Assessment (AcICT), which offers advice to ministers and parliament on complex Information Technology projects. In 2023, he was elected Fellow of the Netherlands Academy of Engineering.