POPL 2026
Sun 11 - Sat 17 January 2026 Rennes, France
Mon 12 Jan 2026 16:00 - 16:30 at Salle 12 - PADL M4 Chair(s): Nada Amin, Joaquín Arias

Network troubleshooting today relies largely on ticket systems, which log, record, replay, and analyze live events, while overlooking recent advances in SDNs, programmable networks, and verified data centers, all of which have produced a rich body of models and control software. We argue instead that this modern network software — including abstract models and control logic — provides a vantage point for troubleshooting, enabled by a debugger that, when things go bump in the night, allows someone who neither wrote the software nor is familiar with the DSL or verification tools to pinpoint the exact culprit line — a stepping stone for systematically diagnosing the underlying network. As a first step toward this vision, we present a declarative debugging schema for modern network software amid its rapid evolution: the user only needs to answer ``yes/no'' questions about the software’s intended behavior, leaving procedural inspection and bug localization entirely to the debugger; meanwhile, new language features — arisen with emerging applications — are seamlessly supported through a novel use of partial evaluation, which automatically incorporates these features into the declarative debugging process.

Mon 12 Jan

Displayed time zone: Brussels, Copenhagen, Madrid, Paris change

16:00 - 17:30
PADL M4PADL at Salle 12
Chair(s): Nada Amin Harvard University, Joaquín Arias Universidad Rey Juan Carlos
16:00
30m
Talk
Declarative Debugging for Modern Networks
PADL
Anduo Wang Temple University, USA, Matthew Caesar UIUC
16:30
30m
Talk
Interpretable Configuration Optimization for Static Program Verification via Rule-Based and Counterfactual Reasoning
PADL
Jaeseong Lee The University of Texas at Dallas, Sopam Dasgupta The University of Texas at Dallas, Gopal Gupta The University of Texas at Dallas, Shiyi Wei University of Texas at Dallas
17:00
30m
Talk
REGAL: Extracting implicit rules in text using LLMs with logic program feedback
PADL
Abhiramon Rajasekharan The University of Texas at Dallas, Gopal Gupta The University of Texas at Dallas