Automated Explanations for Debugging

在本提案中，我们将重点讨论自动化调试问题。这一领域的目标是设计技术，帮助软件开发人员理解和纠正行为不端的计算机程序中的缺陷。用于自动调试的现有技术集中于对程序的所有源代码中的哪些源代码行可能包含错误进行假设。相反，这项建议侧重于清楚而简明地解释程序如何以及为什么行为不端。这些解释是在没有人工交互的情况下产生的，有助于简化和消除修复有缺陷的软件过程中的猜测。目前还不知道如何为涉及并发性的程序计算这样的解释，例如具有多个并发执行线程的程序，然而并发性正在成为现代程序中的基本构造，并且是至关重要的。该建议解决了迄今为止未解决的为涉及多个并发执行组件的程序产生这样的解释的问题。这项建议进一步解决了以开发人员能够理解和使用的语言和格式向软件开发人员提供解释的重要问题。**提高软件开发的可靠性和成本效益一直是谷歌、苹果、微软和IBM等主要软件公司在过去十年中的主要重点。改进的调试工具降低了软件开发的成本并提高了生产率。这些更低的成本和更高的生产率对于维持加拿大不断增长的软件行业非常重要。这些技术还提高了软件的可靠性，提供了更好的保证，确保计算机程序实现它们的预期目标。因此，使用该软件的公司和个人还可以通过避免因软件行为不当而造成的麻烦来节省资金。

In this proposal, we focus upon the problem of automated debugging. The goal in this area is to devise techniques that help software developers understand and correct flaws within misbehaving computer programs. Existing techniques for automated debugging focus on making hypotheses about which lines of source code may contain a bug amongst all source code for a program. This proposal instead focuses on clearly and concisely explaining how and why a program misbehaved. These explanations are produced without human interaction and help to simplify and remove guesswork from the process of fixing faulty software. It is not presently known how to compute such explanations for programs involving concurrency, such as those with multiple concurrently executing threads, yet concurrency is emerging as a fundamental construct in modern programs and is of critical importance. This proposal addresses the heretofore unresolved issue of producing such explanations for programs involving multiple concurrently executing components. This proposal further addresses the important issue of presenting explanations to software developers in languages and formats that developers can understand and use.**Improving the reliability and cost-effectiveness of software development has been a primary focus over the last decade for key software companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, and IBM. Improved debugging tools lower the costs and increase productivity within software development. These lower costs and increased productivity are important for maintaining Canada's growing software industry. These techniques also improve the reliability of software, providing better assurances that computer programs do what they are intended to. As a result, companies and people who use the software also save money by avoiding hassles created by software that misbehaves.