U-M researcher involved in $10 million project to advance computer programming

ANN ARBOR, Mich.-Making computer programming faster, easier and more intuitive is the goal of a new $10 million National Science Foundation project that involves a University of Michigan researcher and is based at the University of Pennsylvania. The five-year Expeditions in Computer Augmented Program Engineering, or ExCAPE, project includes multiple research institutions, partners in industry, and educational outreach to the next generation of computer scientists. Stéphane Lafortune, a professor in the U-M Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, will work toward automating the complicated, time-consuming and expensive software-debugging process. Lafortune is the co-creator of Gadara, a controller that that can anticipate and prevent situations that might cause software deadlocks. Deadlocks freeze the machine when different parts of a program get caught in an endless cycle of waiting for one another as they access shared data. "The Gadara project was a precursor to the multicore work we'll do here, which is more generally applicable to all bugs and not just deadlocks," Lafortune said. The overarching goal of the ExCAPE project is ambitious and involves automating programming to the largest possible extent.