TDFix: A lightweight tool for fixing deadlocks based on templates

Bug localization, i.e., locating bugs in code snippets, is a frequent task in software development. Although static bug-finding tools are available to reduce manual effort in bug localization, these tools typically detect bugs with known project-independent bug patterns. However, many bugs in real-world code snippets are project-specific. To address this issue, in this paper, we propose a novel approach for LOcating Bugs By Searching the most similar sample snippet (LOBBYS). LOBBYS detects bugs with the help of crowd-contributed correct code, which implement the function that buggy code is expected to implement. Given a buggy code snippet, LOBBYS takes two steps to locate the bug: (1) normalize the bug-gy snippet, and then search for the most similar sample snippet from the code base; (2) align the buggy code and sample code snip-pets, find the difference between the two code snippets, and generate a bug report based on the difference. To evaluate LOBBYS, we build one algorithm-oriented code base and select some buggy snippets from two real-world systems. The result shows that LOBBYS can effectively locate bugs for buggy snippets with high precision. Under the similarity of 50%, 70% and 90%, LOBBYS achieves bug-localization precision as 67%, 83%, and 92%.

The paper focuses on enhancing the current or modern software development practices in Information Technology (IT) organizations. The research paper aims to address the gap between various hybrid software development approaches and existing practices that contribute to software development practices. The methodology adopted here is to obtain data from software professionals and understand how the current practices in the software development industry have contributed to the productivity of the employees and the IT organization, which has been done with the help of a survey questionnaire and by analyzing existing research articles and papers on the software development practices. This research is a conceptual model focused on a modern hybrid approach for software development, rather than focusing on a single software development approach, which can help IT organization increase productivity and deliver business value beyond customer expectations. The cost to build and time to market a software product or a software service can reduce by integrating the required software development practices. Today, staying relevant in the competitive market can be made easier by choosing the best available software development practices, frameworks, and models to fit an organization’s value and knowledge system. The conceptual model aims to reduce the gap between various hybrid software development approaches and existing practices contributing to software development. The paper concludes by discussing the benefits of the hybrid software development approach and urge IT organizations to adopt it as per their software development requirements and customer requirements.

In the first part of this paper we summarize the results of a questionnaire for software professionals which we, the Software Engineering Group at Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, handed out to (local) small and medium-sized IT businesses. The questionnaire targeted the true state of the art in practical software development with a focus on questions regarding the benefits and drawbacks of standard methodologies and all forms of user participation in such an environment. Especially interesting for us was the degree of customer integration into the development process, the understandability of used notations from the developer and user perspective, and the possible reasons for difficulties in the interaction between customer and developer teams. In the second part we present a first look at the UPEX methodology which takes into account the results of the questionnaire

Developing reliable yet flexible software is a hard problem. Although modeling methods enjoy a lot of advantages, the exclusive use of just one of them, in many cases, may not guarantee the development of reliable and flexible software. Formal modeling methods ensure reliability because they use a rigorous approach to software development. However, lack of knowledge and high cost practically force developers to use semi-formal methods instead. Semi-formal (visual) modeling methods, which are widely used in practical large-scale software development, are not good enough for reliable software development. This paper proposes a new approach to the development of reliable yet flexible software by transforming formal and semi-formal models into each other. In this way, the advantages of both methods are incorporated in to the software development process. The structured rules, proposed in this paper, transform formal and visual models into each other through the iterative and evolutionary process. The feasibility as well as the effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated using the multi-lift system as a test case.

Preface: Volume 44, Issue 3

Development of the enterprise e-commerce gives birth to the development of e-commerce professional. The e-commerce teaching, which is with the practical teaching as the core needs to rely on the e-commerce practical teaching software. The development of e-commerce practical teaching software is based on online payments and settlements, in the light of software designâ??s principles of sharing, scalability and reliability, with the processes WEB system process design thinking, adopts SQL2005 database and B/S architecture, based on JAVA, EJB , J2EE, XML open technical interfaces, from the five functional modules of systems management, information management, B2C transactions, B2B transactions as well as certificates and payment to simulate the payment clearing system, the commercial banking system and the front-end payment instrument system. The students can understand the systems, structures and processes of online payment and settlement systems, building intuitive e-commerce operational mode to enhance the practical operational ability and comprehensive quality through the intuitive feelings of e-commerce online payment and settlement systems.

Combining data analytics and developers feedback for identifying reasons of inaccurate estimations in agile software development

DOI: 10.1049/cp.2009.0594 ISBN: 978 1 84919 126 5 Location: Prague, Czech Republic Conference date: 8-11 June 2009 Format: PDF The optimal allocation of emergency power supplies should consider the distribution of existing distributed generators, capacity of existing emergency power suppliers in each local district utility and important customers' needs. Based on the relationship between power supply reliability and economy, the optimum model of emergency power supplies has been proposed in this paper with the minimum total cost as objective function and some constraints such as time and capacity etc.. In order to determine the number and capacity of mobile power generating vehicles equipped in each local district utility, an optimal algorithm of emergency power supplies based on genetic algorithm is put forward. The model and algorithm brought forward are proved by a practical example and software development based on GIS. The study results help to improve power supply reliability and the ability of urban electric network for emergency situation, reduce customers' outage costs and guarantee power system with preventive and emergency measures facing natural and man-made disasters. (4 pages) Inspec keywords: software engineering; power distribution economics; distributed power generation; power supplies to apparatus; power distribution reliability; geographic information systems; power engineering computing; genetic algorithms; fault diagnosis Subjects: Software engineering techniques; Power engineering computing; Reliability; Power convertors and power supplies to apparatus; Distribution networks; Optimisation techniques; Optimisation techniques

The growing importance of concurrent programming has made practical concurrent software development become a cornerstone of many computer science curricula. Since a few years, a sound bridge from concurrency theory to concurrence practice is available in the form of pseuCo, a light-weight programming language featuring both message passing and shared memory concurrency. That language is at the core of an award-winning lecture at Saarland Informatics Campus. This paper presents a novel two-step semantic mapping from pseuCo programs to colored Petri nets, developed for the sake of further strengthening the educational concept behind pseuCo. The approach is fully integrated in , our open-source teaching tool for pseuCo, empowering students to interact with the Petri-net-based semantics of pseuCo. In addition, we present a source-level exploration tool for pseuCo, also based on this semantics, that gives users an IDE-like debugging experience while enabling full control over the nondeterminism inherent in their programs. The debugger is also part of , allowing students to access it without any set-up.

Version control and module management are very important in practical software development. In UNIX, RCS or SCCS is used in general as version control tools. They, however, have a couple of drawbacks. This paper proposed a solution for these issues by applying 3D visualization. The prototype system, VRCS, was developed. In our system, version information stored in the RCS history file is displayed as a 2D tree by taking the z-axis as time. Other 2D trees are laid out in 3D space in the same way. In our visualization, files which compose a certain release of the software are connected by a line called a relation link. By using GUIs, users can check in/out each version easily and interactively. More importantly, just by choosing the relation link, a certain release is rebuilt automatically. Three comparative experiments between VRCS and RCS were conducted to know the effectiveness of VRCS. The result shows that VRCS is faster in checking in/out than RCS.

Model transformations are a central element of model-driven development (MDD) approaches. The correctness of model transformations is critical to their effective use in practical software development, since users must be able to rely upon transformations correctly preserving the semantics of source models and producing valid target models. In this paper we provide techniques for proving the termination, confluence and correctness of declaratively-specified model transformations, relative to a formal semantics for UML and OCL. We compare the effectiveness of syntactic analysis techniques, interactive verification tools and automated proof tools.

Despite apparent success in using formal models to capture principles of human-system interaction, there are few accounts that consider how these results might be applied in practical software development. This paper is based on work conducted within an ESPRIT Basic Research Action (Amodeus-2) investigating means of design expression and transfer. Within Amodeus we are applying formal methods to the analysis of large design spaces. The focus of this paper is on some initial results obtained from the specification of an interactive system for managing audio-visual (AV) connections in an office environment. Our concern is how the specification (and formal methods in general) can be used to address design issues that impact the user interface. We argue that although formal models cannot guarantee that a system will be ‘usable’, they provide a precise design representation which can be tempered and informed by other perspectives.

Many software development companies, especially small and medium-sized ones, still need to be more aware of and understand Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) values, methods, techniques, and concepts. Recent studies have shown that companies are demanding internal self-assessment of HCI practices within the software development industry. However, only a few models are available for assessing HCI practices, and they lack sufficient validation to be widely applicable. The models are mainly based on staged assessments by experts, but continuous representation models are more suitable for self-assessment. To bridge these gaps, we have developed a new process model, HCI Reflect—a self-assessment method, and structurally assessed it as a model encompassing four dimensions for self-assessing HCI practices in software development companies: human-centeredness, process and infrastructure, usability performance, and usability impact. In this article, we present the model’s theoretical foundation and the results from an international assessment study of the first version of the model, where 118 software development professionals evaluated the model’s four dimensions. The results demonstrated the significance of these dimensions, and based on this, we present a revised version. The development and assessment are the first steps towards the validation of the model, and we plan to test the underlying questionnaire for usability next. The model, when validated, would be helpful for self-assessing HCI practices in software development companies to foster knowledge and understanding of HCI practices in development teams. ACM CCS: Human-centered computing— > Human computer interaction (HCI)— > HCI design and evaluation methods.

Quality assurance tasks of software products typically take place throughout the entire software development life-cycle. Frequently, paper-based inspections methods are used to review software development documents (e.g. requirements specifications, design documents, test plans). Nevertheless, even though the quality of these documents has a major impact on the quality of the developed software product, they are often not as rigorously reviewed as source code. This paper presents a tool-based approach that facilitates the software inspection process in order to determine defects of generally accepted documentation best practices in software development documents. Moreover, we present results of a conducted empirical study and show how this tool-based approach helps to facilitate inspection tasks and to support gathering information on the quality of the inspected documents.

“We do not appreciate being experimented on”: Developer and researcher views on the ethics of experiments on open-source projects