david minh-duy cao
computer science & ethnic studies
uc san diego
he/him
david@cao.sh
heyo! I'm David, a fourth year undergrad at UC San Diego interested in the intersection of PL, HCI, and social justice.
Research
Principles of Programming Languages (POPL) 2023
babble: Learning Better Abstractions with E-Graphs and Anti-Unification
David Cao*, Rose Kunkel*, Chandrakana Nandi, Max Willsey, Zachary Tatlock, Nadia Polikarpova
Humans are really good at library learning: finding common patterns in code and extracting them into a library of common abstractions. This problem has a bunch of use cases across FPGA design, program synthesis, and modeling human perception. So how can we get a computer to do this?
Building off of prior work in library learning and e-graphs, we contribute new algorithms for proposing candidate abstractions and choosing the best set. We improve on the prior state-of-the-art in compression and speed by several orders of magnitude!
Paper Slides (.key) Code (Github)Programming Language Design and Implementation (PLDI) 2022
Type-Directed Program Synthesis for RESTful APIs
Zheng Guo, David Cao, Davin Tjong, Jean Yang, Cole Schlesinger, Nadia Polikarpova
Interacting with REST APIs can often be extremely unwieldy; APIs can have hundreds of methods, and may or may not be documented. We propose a system that can synthesize programs that call into REST APIs.
PaperPOPL 2021 • Student Research Competition, 2nd Prize
Automated Dependent Resource Analysis
David Cao, advised by Tristan Knoth and Nadia Polikarpova
When programming, it's useful to know the resource use of a program (in undergrad we take whole courses on this!). We contribute a system that can automatically infer resource bounds that can depend on the inputs of a program.
Abstract Virtual poster (video)${time} ${typ}
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Awards
January 2023
Computing Research Association
June 2021
Service
January 2022–Present
Campus Diversity Engagement Coordinator
SPACES at UC San Diego
SPACES is one of the last student-run, student-led college resource centers in the country, aimed at improving marginalized folks in San Diego's access to and retention in higher education. I've helped give Alternative Tours & Panels to hundreds of local high school and college students, which examine the ungarnished history of student activism and organizing here at UCSD.
SPACES WebsiteProjects
September 2020
seascape (ucsd cape eval analysis)
June 2020
ucsd wushu website
June 2020