How to build the perfect Swiss army knife, and keep it sharp?: Challenges for the soot program-analysis framework in the light of past, current and future demands

Abstract

Some program-analysis frameworks have been around for a long time, with Soot alone having been around for more than one decade. Over the years, demand on such frameworks have changed drastically, stressing the flexibility of frameworks such as Soot to their limit. What were those demands back then and how did they impact the design of Soot? What are the current demands and what architectural and methodological changes do they demand? What has the Soot community done to address these challenges? What remains to be solved? This talk means to address these questions to open the debate about the future evolution of Soot and other static-analysis frameworks.