Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Parallel and distributed systems: testing, analysis, and debugging

Abstract

It is our great pleasure to welcome you to the 6th Workshop on Parallel and Distributed Systems: Testing, Analysis, and Debugging (PADTAD '08). When we started PADTAD in 2003, it was the only workshop dedicated to testing of concurrent and distributed software. This field is taking center stage, as can be seen by the growing attention it is receiving in dedicated workshops and top conferences. Industry interest in PADTAD topics is reflected in our distinguished list of supporting companies, which includes IBM, Intel, and Microsoft. These companies and others now have groups dedicated to concurrency testing tools. PADTAD's mission is to share advances in the field of testing, analysis, and debugging of concurrent systems between industry and academia. This is achieved through the balanced mix of presentations and attendees from industry and academia. In this rapidly developing field, academic work can go quickly from theory to practice, and industrial work is often cutting edge and publishable. PADTAD '08 features a keynote presentation by Dr. Ramesh Peri, a Principal Engineer at Intel, on software development tools for multi-core/parallel programming. While PADTAD's traditional focus is on tools, it is clear that teaching students and professionals how to develop and test concurrent systems is also essential. Therefore, PADTAD '08 includes a special session on Education, featuring invited presentations by Dr. Madan Musuvathi from Microsoft Research and Dr. Eitan Farchi from IBM Research.