Dr Alex Potanin

BSc(Hons), PhD VUW

Position	Senior Lecturer
Research Interests	Ownership and Immutability, OO Programming Languages, Type Systems, Software Engineering
Publications	Publications Listing
Office	CO262 - Postal Address
Phone	+64 4 463 5302
Email	Alex.Potanin@ecs.vuw.ac.nz

Teaching

Teaching in 2010: COMP 261 COMP 303 SWEN 430

Biography

Alex is originally from Moscow, Russia with a background in Mathematics. Alex has completed his PhD in programming languages in 2006 and took up a job as a Lecturer in Software Engineering at Victoria University of Wellington. During his studies he took short breaks to work as a Visiting Researcher at Purdue University, and Software Engineer at two Wellington start-ups.

Please see http://homepages.ecs.vuw.ac.nz/~alex/ for more information including links to publications, possible projects for students, and much more.

C.A.R. Hoare on Research

"Pure academic research and applied industrial research are complementary, and should be pursued concurrently and in collaboration. The goal of industrial research is (and should always be) to pluck the 'low-hanging fruit'; that is, to solve the easiest parts of the most prevalent problems, in the particular circumstances of here and now. But the goal of the pure research scientist is exactly the opposite: it is to construct the most general theories, covering the widest possible range of phenomena, and to seek certainty of knowledge that will endure for future generations. It is to avoid the compromises so essential to engineering, and to seek ideals like accuracy of measurement, purity of materials, and correctness of programs, far beyond the current perceived needs of industry or popularity in the market-place. For this reason, it is only scientific research that can prepare mankind for the unknown unknowns of the forever uncertain future."

From: http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2009/10/42360-retrospective-an-axiomatic-basis-for-computer-programming/fulltext