Symposium on Software Systems: Practice, Research and Engineering

With increasing automation, the need for a systemic perspective to software development is becoming imperative. Most web applications for example, are no longer standalone units, but work as part of a larger system of applications. A simple web page generated by a web application typically is the result of the inter-operation of different independently developed applications like open-id authentication, payment gateway, advertisement, etc. All of these are independently developed components without a specific requirement of their use together.

While research on the above challenges have focused on the resuability properties of software components, there is also another perspective that needs attention. This is the "systemic" perspective to software addressing properties like efficiency, robustness, load distribution, etc. of the entire system of components working together.

Software systems are likely to be more complex and open-ended in comparison to specifically designed engineering systems like automobiles, for example. Evolution, emergence and management of uncertainty take far more prominence in software systems than in conventional engineering systems.

Given the growing significance of software systems, it has become imperative to address software systems as a separate endeavour in its own right. It is in this backdrop that the Symposium on Software Systems: Practice, Research and Engineering (ASPIRE) was conceived. ASPIRE 2011 is jointly hosted by the ACM India Chennai Chapter and the Computer Society of India (CSI) Special Interest Group on Distributed Systems (SIGDS).

ASPIRE 2011, the first in this series is modeled as a community building exercize. It will host tutorial talks and invited keynote addresses from several eminent researchers. In addition, it hosts a poster presentation by students and researchers working in areas pertinent to software systems.

To register for ASPIRE 2011, please visit this site.

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