IWPD 2012 - The Third International Workshop on Program Debugging (IWPD 2012)

Software today is inherently large and complex, in fact more so than ever
before. Consequently, debugging when failure is observed is also
becoming much more difficult and time-consuming. Manual debugging is
quickly losing its viability as a practical option, and yet at the same time,
techniques that aim for automatic fault localization are still not accurately
and consistently able to pinpoint the locations of faults to a desired degree.
Distinguishing executions that fail due to different causative faults,
reliably recording and replaying failed executions, and fixing bugs
without introducing new faults are but some of the debugging-related
problems faced by developers today. Furthermore, formal verification
techniques suffer from complexity and scalability issues, static techniques
can often be imprecise, and the heavy performance overhead of dynamic
techniques can prohibit their application. While studies are being
conducted to resolve these problems, researchers often make unrealistic
assumptions, and subject software may not be representative of large
scale industrial applications. Such concerns can induce in practitioners a
lack of faith with regard to what research proposals can offer and deliver.
This workshop brings to light the latest challenges and advances in
research topics associated with program debugging, with a special
emphasis on methodology, techniques, and environment. Also accepted
are experience reports that describe industrial and/or empirical studies
related to these three aspects. IWPD aims to provide a forum and serve as
a platform for researchers and practitioners to exchange ideas, present
new advancements, and identify further challenges in the context of
program debugging.
Topics of Interest
The workshop welcomes submissions that cover, but are not limited
to, the following topics:
? Automation of program debugging
? Challenges and emerging techniques in program debugging for
large scale real-life applications
? Static and dynamic analyses for software fault localization and
bug-fixing
? Apply debugging to multi-core and multi-threaded programs
? Impacts of program languages and environments on debugging
? Impact of program debugging and test case prioritization on
regression testing
? Software risk analysis and fault proneness prediction
? Software testing, verification, and validation for debugging
? Online monitoring and record/replay for program debugging
? Reducing the cost of program debugging
? Empirical studies and benchmarking
? Experience reports and industrial best practices
? Tool support
? Transitioning from research to practice
? Integrating debugging with other software development activities
? Approaches to teaching program debugging