Automated Explanations for Debugging

在这个建议中，我们关注的是自动调试的问题。这个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。现有的自动调试技术侧重于假设在程序的所有源代码中哪一行源代码可能包含错误。相反，这个建议侧重于清晰而简洁地解释程序如何以及为什么会出错。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错误软件过程中的猜测。目前还不知道如何计算涉及并发的程序的这种解释，例如那些具有多个并发执行线程的程序，但并发性正在成为现代程序中的基本结构，并且至关重要。此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生成此类解释的问题。该建议进一步解决了以开发人员可以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。

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.