[fg-arc] VerifyThis 2018: Call for Problems and First Announcement

[Andrei Paskevich]

*******************************************************************************

VerifyThis Verification Competition 2018

FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PROBLEMS

Competition to be held at ETAPS 2018

http://verifythis.ethz.ch

********************************************************************************

Get involved, even if you cannot participate in the competition: provide a challenge.


IMPORTANT DATES
Submission deadline: March 9, 2018
Competition: April 14 and 15, 2018

CALL FOR PROBLEMS
To extend the problem pool, we are now soliciting algorithms and data structures which could contribute interesting verification challenges for the VerifyThis program verification competition (itself introduced below).

We encourage suggestions at any level of detail, in particular submissions without a fully worked out verification task.

- a problem may contain an informal statement of the algorithm to be implemented (optionally with complete or partial pseudocode) and the requirement(s) to be verified
- a problem should be suitable for a 60-90 minute time slot
- submission of reference solutions is welcome but not mandatory
- problems with an inherent language- or tool-specific bias should be clearly identified as such
- problems that contain several subproblems or other means of difficulty scaling are especially welcome
- the organizers reserve the right (but no obligation) to use the problems in the competition, either as submitted or with modifications
- submissions from (potential) competition participants are allowed

Problems from previous competitions can be seen at http://verifythis.ethz.ch

Submissions are to be sent by email to verifythis at cs.nuim.ie by the date indicated above.

PRIZES
The most suitable submission for competition will receive a prize.

ABOUT
VerifyThis 2018 will take place as part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software (ETAPS 2018) on April 14 and 15, 2018.
It is the 7th event in the VerifyThis competition series.
Information on previous events and participants can be found at http://verifythis.ethz.ch


The aims of the competition are:
- to bring together those interested in formal verification, and to provide an engaging, hands-on, and fun opportunity for discussion
- to evaluate the usability of logic-based program verification tools in a controlled experiment that could be easily repeated by others.

The competition will offer a number of challenges presented in natural language. Participants have to formalize the requirements, implement a solution, and formally verify the implementation for adherence to the specification.

There are no restrictions on the programming language and verification technology used. The correctness properties posed in problems will have the input-output behaviour of programs in focus. Solutions will be judged for correctness, completeness and elegance.

ORGANIZERS
* Marieke Huisman, University of Twente, the Netherlands
* Rosemary Monahan, Maynooth University, Ireland
* Peter Müller, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
* Andrei Paskevich, Paris-Sud University, France
* Gidon Ernst, National Institute of Informatics Tokyo, Japan

CONTACT
Email: verifythis at cs.nuim.ie
Web: http://verifythis.ethz.ch