The 2nd Workshop on Determinism and Correctness in Parallel Programming
http://sites.google.com/site/2ndwodet/

Newport Beach, California, March 6, 2011
Held in conjunction with ASPLOS 2011

Unintentional non-determinism is the bane of multithreaded software
development. Defective software might execute correctly hundreds of
times before a subtle synchronization bug appears, and when it does,
developers often cannot readily reproduce it while
debugging. Nondeterminism also complicates testing as good coverage
requires both a wide range of program inputs and a large number of
possible interleavings for each input. These problems have taken on
renewed urgency as multicore systems have driven parallel programming
to become mainstream. Determinism is emerging as an important
research area, ranging from techniques for existing code (including
deterministic execution models, parallelizing compilers, and
deterministic replay for debugging) to new programming models
(including deterministic general purpose languages and run-time
systems). Deterministic multiprocessing yields deep open questions in
programming languages, compilers, operating systems, runtime systems
and architecture. While there is a growing consensus that determinism
would greatly help with the programmability challenges of multicore
systems, there is still little consensus on many important questions.
What are the performance and programmability trade-offs for enforcing
deterministic semantics with different approaches? Should
deterministic semantics be strictly enforced or guaranteed only for
programs that are "well-behaved" in certain ways? How can we support
truly non-deterministic algorithms, where non-determinism is
intentionally used for improved parallel performance? How can each
layer of the system stack contribute to these goals? What are other
safety guarantees useful in making parallel programming easier and
less error prone (e.g., race-freedom, atomicity, etc..)?

The Second Workshop on Determinism and Correctness in Parallel
Programming is an across-the-stack forum to discuss the role of a wide
range of correctness properties in parallel and concurrent
programming. While determinism is an important theme, the scope of
the workshop includes other correctness properties for parallel
programs and systems. The workshop will be a full day event with a
few invited talks, a moderated debate, and technical sessions for
short peer-reviewed papers discussing ideas, positions, or preliminary
research results.

In addition to answers to the questions above, topics of interest include:

* Language extensions for disciplined parallel programming models
(deterministic, data race-free, etc.)

* Architecture, operating system, runtime system and compiler support
for parallel program correctness

* Concurrency debugging techniques

* New properties of parallel programs

* Limit studies and empirical studies of the cost of safety properties

* Studies of the applicability of correctness properties in parallel
programs and algorithms

* Concurrency bug avoidance techniques

* Real-world experience with safe parallel programming models,
systems, or tools

## Submissions

We are seeking submissions of short position papers to be presented at
the workshop. Position papers may introduce new ideas relevant to the
workshop, propose interesting research directions, and/or describe
preliminary research results. Workshop submissions will be judged on
novelty, technical merit, and potential for creating thought-provoking
discussion at the workshop. There will NOT be a formal proceedings so
work presented at this workshop is eligible for republication in
future ACM conferences or journals (and other formal venues that have
similar republication policies).

Submissions must be in PDF format, in two columns, 10-point font,
1-inch margins, and no longer than 6 pages in total. Please contact
the organizers if any of these present a hardship. Please check back
for the submissions link here: http://sites.google.com/site/2ndwodet/


## Important Dates

Friday, January 14, 2011 - Paper Submission (by 11:59pm US Eastern Standard Time)
Monday, February 7, 2011 - Acceptance notifications

## Organizers

Vikram Adve, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Luis Ceze, University of Washington
Bryan Ford, Yale University

## Program Committee

Vikram Adve, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Saman Amarasinghe, MIT
Emery Berger, University of Massachusetts
Hans-J Boehm, HP Labs
Luis Ceze, University of Washington
Bryan Ford, Yale University
Tim Harris, MSR
Jim Larus, MSR
Vivek Sarkar, Rice University