ACM TechTalk: Eddie Aftandilian

View the recent ACM Techtalk, “Lessons Learned from Building GitHub Copilot(s)” with Eddie Aftandilian, Principal Researcher at GitHub Next. In recent years, AI developer tools such as GitHub Copilot have progressed from research projects to critical parts of the developer toolset. Researchers in the machine learning, programming languages and software engineering communities continue to push the boundaries of what is possible, but turning promising research results into tools that are useful at scale is hard. It involves determining the right use cases, designing the right UX, evaluating and improving quality, and many other factors.

In this talk, Aftandilian will discuss how to bridge the demo-to-real-world gap via lessons learned from building several AI developer tools at GitHub, including the original GitHub Copilot, Copilot for Docs, and Copilot Workspace. 

ACM ByteCast: Wen-Mei Hwu

In this episode of ACM ByteCast, Scott Hanselman welcomes 2024 ACM-IEEE CS Eckert-Mauchly Award recipient Wen-Mei Hwu, Senior Distinguished Research Scientist at NVIDIA and Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He was recognized for pioneering and foundational contributions to the design and adoption of multiple generations of processor architectures. 

Here, he discusses the evolution of Moore’s Law and the significance of Dennard Scaling, explains how his research group’s approach to microarchitecture at the University of California, Berkeley in the 80s led to advancements such as Intel’s P6 processor, the early days of processors and the rise of specialized processors and new computational units. predictions about the future of computing and advancements that will be required to handle vast data sets in real time, and more.

Featured ACM Member: Meenakshi D’Souza

Meenakshi D’Souza is a Professor at the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) in Bangalore, India. Her research interests include formal methods, software testing, model-based development, and automata theory, as well as design and architectures for embedded software. D’Souza is also interested in fostering more gender diversity in technical fields. 

She is an ACM Senior Member and has received the Teaching Excellence Award from IIIT-Bangalore. Her course on software testing has been offered in the national online education platform NPTEL since 2017 and more than 70,000 learners have enrolled for this course. D’Souza was elected President of the ACM India Council for a term that runs from July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2026.

In her interview, D’Souza discusses women and academia in India, improving software estimation models, her goals as President of the ACM India Council, and more. Read D’Souza’s interview here.

Featured ACM Member: Luciano Baresi

Luciano Baresi is a Professor at Politecnico di Milano. He has published papers in a variety of topics in software engineering. Earlier in his career, he worked in formal approaches for modeling and specification languages, Unified Modeling Language (UML), and the design of web applications. Currently, he is interested in distributed systems, service-based applications, and the different aspects of mobile, self-adaptive, and pervasive software systems.

Baresi’s honors include receiving Best Paper and Most Influential Paper Awards at several conferences including RE (2020), ICSOC (2020), and SEAMS (2022). Baresi has also served as Program Chair for numerous software engineering conferences and was the Steering Committee Chair for the ACM Conference on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE). He is the founding EiC of the new publication Proceedings of the ACM on Software Engineering (PACMSE). PACMSE is a Gold Open Access journal publishing top-quality, original research on all aspects of software engineering.

In his interview, Baresi discusses the constraints of cloud infrastructure, the need for software engineering to keep pace with mobile computing, why ACM PACMSE is needed, and more. Read Baresi’s interview here.