What are semantics in c?

A very new PhD student research group working on C semantics has just appeared on the horizon. You can tell they are very new to C semantics by the sloppy wording in their survey of C users (what is a ‘normal’ compiler and how does it differ from the ‘current mainstream’ compiler referred to in some questions? I’m surprised the outcome appeared clear to the authors, given the jumble of multiple choice options given to respondents).

Over the years a number of these groups have appeared, existed until their members received a PhD and then disappeared. In some cases one of the group members does something that shows a lot of potential (e.g., the C-semantics work), but the nature of academic research means that either the freshly minted PhD moves to industry or else moves on to another research area. Unfortunately most groups are overwhelmed by the task and pivot into meaningless subsets of concentrating on mathematical organisms. Very, very occasionally interesting work gets supported once the PhD is out of the way, Coccinelle being the stand-out example for C.

It takes implementing a full compiler (as part of a PhD or otherwise) to learn C semantics well enough to do meaningful research on it. The world seems to be stuck in a loop of using research to educate know-nothings until they know-something and then sending them off on another track. This is why C language researchers keep repeating themselves every 10 years or so.

Will anybody in this new group do any interesting work? Alan Mycroft set the bar very high for Cambridge by submitting a