Description: We will study recent papers on separation logic, with emphasis on concurrency, read-only sharing, extensions to higher-order languages, and automation of the logic. Likely papers include:

• Berdine, Calcagno, and O'Hearn. A Decidable Fragment of Separation Logic (FSTTCS 2004)
• Birkedal, Torp-Smith, and Yang. Semantics of Separation-logic Typing and Higher-order Frame Rules (submitted to LICS 2005)
• Bornat, Calcagno, O'Hearn, and Parkinson. Fractional and Counting Permissions in Separation Logic (POPL 2005)
• Brookes. A Semantics for Concurrent Separation Logic (FSTTCS 2004)
• Mijajlovic, Torp-Smith, and O'Hearn. Refinement and Separation Contexts (FSTTCS 2004)
• O'Hearn. Resources, Concurrency and Local Reasoning (CONCUR 2004)
• O'Hearn, Yang, and Reynolds. Separation and Information Hiding (POPL 2004)
• Parkinson and Bierman. Permission Accounting in Separation Logic (POPL 2005)
• Reynolds. Towards A Grainless Semantics for Shared-Variable Concurrency (FSTTCS 2004)

Text: Notes and papers to be distributed by instructor.

Method of Evaluation: Grading will be based on homework and examinations.

WHO SHOULD TAKE WHAT?

If are interested in the subject, but have no prior experience with separation logic (or even Hoare logic), you should take the introductory minicourse and then, if your appetite is whetted, take this research minicourse.

If you have previously studied separation logic (in particular, if you have taken one of my previous courses on the topic), you should only take this research minicourse.