SHF: Medium: Collaborative Research: Improved Performance Testing and Debugging

软件性能对于最终用户如何看待已部署软件的质量至关重要。性能问题，也称为“性能错误”，通常对应于导致性能显著下降的软件故障。大量证据表明，看似无害的性能问题可能会导致严重的可伸缩性降低和经济损失。这个项目开发了一套新的技术和工具，可以显著改进性能测试和调试。具体来说，该项目重点解决了三个关键挑战。首先，性能错误的常见模式是什么，以及如何在测试期间检测到这些模式，然后才能在生产运行中表现出来？其次，如何确保为添加新功能、修复错误甚至提高性能而进行的代码更改不会产生性能下降的意外后果？第三，如何从测试运行、回归检查和现场执行跟踪中找到性能错误的原因？该项目的更广泛影响是，改进的性能测试和调试可以大大提高已部署软件的质量，从而提高严重依赖软件的现代社会的生活质量。

Software performance is critical for how end users perceive the quality of the deployed software. Performance problems, also called "performance bugs", typically correspond to software faults that create significant performance degradation. Much evidence shows that seemingly harmless performance problems can lead to severe scalability reductions and financial losses. This project develops a set of new techniques and tools that can significantly improve performance testing and debugging.Specifically, the project focuses on three key challenges. First, what are common patterns of performance bugs and how can these patterns be detected during testing, before they manifest in production runs? Second, how to ensure that code changes for adding new features, fixing bugs, or even improving performance do not have unintended consequence of decreasing performance? Third, how to find causes of performance bugs from testing runs, regression checks, and in-field execution traces? The broader impacts of the project are that improved performance testing and debugging can substantially increase the quality of the deployed software and thus the quality of life in a modern society that heavily depends on software.