[pl-seminar] PL talk 1-2 PM Tuesday, Sept. 8: Dan Barowy

[Thomas Reps <reps@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

I believe that this was not posted to the pl-seminar mailing list.

Tom
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PL Technology for Data Analysts [2]
Tuesday, September 8, 2015 - 1:00pm
CS 2310
Dan Barowy
University of Massachusetts-Amherst
The rapid growth in demand for data scientists and analysts suggests that
data-driven decision making is increasingly valued.  Nonetheless, in
practice, these workers spend between 50% to 80% of their time performing
"data wrangling" tasks: transforming data and removing errors.  We can expect
this problem to become even more severe as our volume of data grows.

I will present two spreadsheet tools that are designed to reduce the data
wrangling overhead.  The first tool, FlashRelate (PLDI 2015), transforms
information stored in ad-hoc spreadsheet layouts into relational tables.
Users provide FlashRelate with examples of the transformed output and the
engine synthesizes the appropriate transformation program.  The second tool,
CheckCell (OOPSLA 2014), identifies the set of inputs most likely to cause
anomalous program behavior.  Flagged inputs are either errors or are very
important and warrant careful inspection.  Both tools are designed for
non-programmers, and are driven via point-and-click interfaces.  FlashRelate
won the PLDI 2015 Distinguished Artifact award and CheckCell won the 2013 MSR
Software Engineering Innovation Foundation award.

About the speaker:

Daniel Barowy is a 6th year graduate student at the College of Information
and Computer Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, currently
working with Emery Berger in the PLASMA Lab.  His interest lies in the design
and implementation of programming languages, particularly for novice users.
His work focuses on program reliability, tools for end-users, and debuggers.
His work on AutoMan, a domain-specific language for reliable crowdsourced
computation (OOPSLA '12) was recently selected as a CACM Research Highlight
(to appear in Jan '16), and his work on FlashRelate (PLDI '15) won the PLDI
2015 Distinguished Artifact Award.  Dan interned at IBM T.J. Watson and
Microsoft Research {New York City, Silicon Valley, and Redmond}.  He received
his B.S. in Computer Science from Boston University and his B.A. in
Philosophy and Legal Studies from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.