Early Registration Deadline Extended!
Conference Announcement - SIGAda 2003

7-11 December 2003, San Diego, California, USA

Sponsored by ACM SIGAda

Due to earlier problems with the online registration system, the SIGAda 2003
conference early registration deadline has been extended to Nov 30!  If you
are interested in registering for the SIGAda 2003 Conference at the reduced,
early registration rates, you should do so as soon as possible.  :-)

Please note that there has been a significant change in the tutorial
schedule.  Alfred Sorkowitz is unable to attend and his tutorial "Improved
Software Testing with the use of Metrics" scheduled for the full day on
Sunday 7 Dec has been cancelled.  As a replacement, Rod Chapman will be
presenting a tutorial entitled "Spark and 'Intensive Overview'"
during the full day tutorial session on Sunday.  The abstract, outline, and
registration instructions are included below.

You can access the evolving program and online registration system from the
conference web site:

     <http://www.acm.org/sigada/conf/sigada2003/>
http://www.acm.org/sigada/conf/sigada2003/

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Cheers,

Ricky E. Sward
SIGAda 2003 Program Chair


Registration Instructions for Rod Chapman's full day Sunday tutorial:


If you wish to register for SF4 before it is formally added to the on-line
registration system, please enter a note into the box in Step 1 of the
registration process labeled:

"Please specify any Special Needs (meals, accessibility, etc.):"

The note should say that you want SF4 rather than SF2.

When you get to the Tutorial Selection Page, please select SF2.

We will adjust your record accordingly.

Abstract of Tutorial:

SPARK is an annotated sub-language of Ada which is unambiguous and suitable
for rigorous static analysis. The tutorial, which is extracted from the
four-day "Software Engineering with SPARK" course will provide an intensive
introduction to SPARK and the static analysis performed by the SPARK
Examiner.  The tutorial is intended primarily for those with current or
recent experience of software development in Ada, especially those who will
work on or lead safety critical or other high integrity developments.
Attendees will be encouraged to bring laptop computers on which the SPARK
Examiner will be installed.

Outline of Tutorial:
1. The rationale of SPARK (45 minutes)

*       major design objectives
*       relationship with Ada
*       why annotations?
*       tool support

2. The core SPARK language (90 minutes)

*       types
*       expressions
*       statements
*       subprograms
*       packages

3. Data and information flow analysis (60 minutes including practical)

Lunch Break

4. Design building blocks (45 minutes)

*       abstract state machines
*       abstract data types
*       interfacing with the environment

5. SPARK and program design (45 minutes)

6. Formal verification (40 minutes)

7. Exception freedom (40 minutes)

8. Effective SPARK use (25 minutes)

*       project organization