How (not) to write Java pointer analyses after 2020

Despite being an old discipline, pointer analysis still attracts research papers every year in premier programming language venues. While a major goal of contemporary pointer analysis research is to improve its efficiency without sacrificing precision, we also see works that introduce novel ways of solving the problem itself. What does this mean? Research in this area is not going to die soon. While some standard ways of writing pointer analyses are clear, there are multiple nooks and pitfalls that make the task difficult and error prone. In particular, there are several misconceptions and undocumented practices, being aware of which would save significant research time. Similarly, some lessons from my own efforts might go a long way in writing correct, precise and efficient pointer analyses, faster. This essay summarizes some such learnings, with a hope to help readers beat the state-of-the-art in (Java) pointer analysis, as they move into their research careers beyond 2020.

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