Paul Bittner

SE+PL research, (functional) programming, domain specific languages, theorem proving, software variability, trading card games

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Hello there, I am a PhD student at the University of Ulm and working as a researcher at the Technical University Braunschweig with Thomas Thüm. During the summer semester of 2024, I also worked at the University of Paderborn.

In my research, I apply programming language methods to software engineering research problems. I am a strong believer in formal methods, as they are invaluable in understanding and specifying exactly what a research problem is about, opening multiple avenues to study and finally solve it. In my experience, finding the right specification and point of view for a problem solves it almost for free.

My current research focus are languages and models for static software configuration and respective change impact analyses. By static configuration, I mean any way of specifying a set of distinct but related things, such as all C programs induced by a C code base with preprocessor macros (#if), or the set of all sandwiches you can configure at Subway. In our Agda library Vatras, we study and compare formal languages for such variability. Within the research project VariantSync, Alexander Schultheiß and me make software-product-line technology more accessible. Our main project DiffDetective is a Java library for variability-aware differencing.

During my masters, I worked as a student assistant at the computer graphics lab of the TU Braunschweig. I was responsible for maintaining a game engine for a 360° planetarium (called the dome) and virtual reality research. Besides, I enjoyed working on my own game engine and other related projects, such as my EDSL for polymorphic entity-component systems back then. As a bachelor’s student, I also worked as a student assistant for the algorithms group at TU Braunschweig, involved in teaching for algorithm engineering and the first semester course on algorithms and data structures.

Selected Publications

  1. OOPSLA
    On the Expressive Power of Languages for Static Variability
    Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages (PACMPL), Oct 2024
  2. FSE Demonstrations
    Variability-Aware Differencing with DiffDetective
    Paul Maximilian BittnerAlexander SchultheißBenjamin MoosherrTimo Kehrer, and Thomas Thüm
    In Companion Proc. Int’l Conference on the Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE Companion), Porto de Galinhas, Brazil, Jul 2024
  3. SoSyM
    RaQuN: A Generic and Scalable N-Way Model Matching Algorithm
    Software and Systems Modeling (SoSyM), Oct 2023
  4. SPLC
    Views on Edits to Variational Software
    In Proc. Int’l Systems and Software Product Line Conf. (SPLC), Tokyo, Japan, Aug 2023
  5. EMSE
    Variational Satisfiability Solving: Efficiently Solving Lots of Related SAT Problems
    Jeffrey M. YoungPaul Maximilian BittnerEric Walkingshaw, and Thomas Thüm
    Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE), Nov 2022
  6. ESEC/FSE
    Classifying Edits to Variability in Source Code
    Paul Maximilian BittnerChristof TinnesAlexander Schultheiß, Sören Viegener, Timo Kehrer, and Thomas Thüm
    In Proc. Europ. Software Engineering Conf./Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE), Singapore, Nov 2022
  7. ICSME
    Quantifying the Potential to Automate the Synchronization of Variants in Clone-and-Own
    Alexander SchultheißPaul Maximilian BittnerThomas Thüm, and Timo Kehrer
    In Proc. Int’l Conf. on Software Maintenance and Evolution (ICSME), Limassol, Cyprus, Oct 2022
  8. ESEC/FSE
    Feature Trace Recording
    Paul Maximilian BittnerAlexander SchultheißThomas ThümTimo KehrerJeffrey M. Young, and Lukas Linsbauer
    In Proc. Europ. Software Engineering Conf./Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE), Athens, Greece, Aug 2021
  9. SEFM
    SAT Encodings of the At-Most-k Constraint – A Case Study on Configuring University Courses
    Paul Maximilian BittnerThomas Thüm, and Ina Schaefer
    In Proc. Int’l Conf. on Software Engineering and Formal Methods (SEFM), Oslo, Norway, Sep 2019