The Moldable Debugger: A Framework for Developing Domain-Specific Debuggers

Chiș, Andrei; Gîrba, Tudor; Nierstrasz, Oscar

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-11245-9_6

Cited by 28 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…We further explore three approaches for controlling the execution of the debugged 95 program, approaches applicable depending on the particular aspects of the target domain. This article extends our previous work [35] as follows: (i) we present a more in-depth description of the Moldable Debugger model, (ii) we introduce two new examples of domain-specific debuggers created using the Moldable Debugger model, (iii) we provide a thorough discussion of related work, and (iv) we discuss three approaches for implementing the Moldable Debugger model.…”

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confidence: 75%

“…For example, when developing a parser, one common action is to step through the execution until parsing reaches a certain position in the input stream. However, as it has no knowledge of parsing and stream manipulation, a generic debugger requires developers to manipulate low-level concepts like message 35 sends or variable accesses. This abstraction gap leads to an ineffective and error-prone effort [17].…”

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confidence: 99%

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Practical domain-specific debuggers using the Moldable Debugger framework

Chiș

Denker

Nierstrasz

2015

Computer Languages, Systems & Structures

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Understanding the run-time behaviour of software systems can be a challenging activity. Debuggers are an essential category of tools used for this purpose as they give developers direct access to the running systems. Nevertheless, traditional debuggers rely on generic mechanisms to introspect and interact with the running systems, while developers reason about and formulate domain-specific questions using concepts and abstractions from their application domains. This mismatch creates an abstraction gap between the debugging needs and the debugging support leading to an inefficient and error-prone debugging effort, as developers need to recover concrete domain concepts using generic mechanisms. To reduce this gap, and increase the efficiency of the debugging process, we propose a framework for developing domain-specific debuggers, called the Moldable Debugger, that enables debugging at the level of the application domain. The Moldable Debugger is adapted to a domain by creating and combining domain-specific debugging operations with domain-specific debugging views, and adapts itself to a domain by selecting, at run time, appropriate debugging operations and views. To ensure the proposed model has practical applicability (i.e., can be used in practice to build real debuggers), we discuss, from both a performance and usability point of view, three implementation strategies. We further motivate the need for domain-specific debugging, identify a set of key requirements and show how our approach improves debugging by adapting the debugger to several domains.

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confidence: 75%

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confidence: 99%

Practical domain-specific debuggers using the Moldable Debugger framework

Chiș

Denker

Nierstrasz

2015

Computer Languages, Systems & Structures

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“…Chiş et al [48,49] proposed the Moldable Debugger framework for developing domain-specific debuggers. They provide a framework to develop domain-specific extensions, each being composed of a set of domain-specific debugging operations and a domain-specific debugging view.…”

Section: Standard Debugging For Executable Dslsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Omniscient debugging for executable DSLs

Bousse

LeRoy²,

Combemale

et al. 2018

Journal of Systems and Software

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Omniscient debugging is a promising technique that relies on execution traces to enable free traversal of the states reached by a model (or program) during an execution. While a few General-Purpose Languages (GPLs) already have support for omniscient debugging, developing such a complex tool for any executable Domain Specific Language (DSL) remains a challenging and error prone task. A generic solution must: support a wide range of executable DSLs independently of the metaprogramming approaches used for implementing their semantics; be efficient for good responsiveness. Our contribution relies on a generic omniscient debugger supported by efficient generic trace management facilities. To support a wide range of executable DSLs, the debugger provides a common set of debugging facilities, and is based on a pattern to define runtime services independently of metaprogramming approaches. Results show that our debugger can be used with various executable DSLs implemented with different metaprogramming approaches. As compared to a solution that copies the model at each step, it is on average six times more efficient in memory, and at least 2.2 faster when exploring past execution states, while only slowing down the execution 1.6 times on average.Keywords: Software Language Engineering; Domain-Specific Languages; Executable DSL; Omniscient debugging; Execution trace IntroductionA large amount of Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) have been proposed and used to describe the dynamic aspects of systems [1,2,3,4,5]. In that context, early dynamic verification and validation (V&V) techniques, such as testing [6], semantic differencing [7] or runtime verification [8], are necessary to ensure that such executable models (or programs 1 ) are correct. These techniques require models to be executable, which can be achieved by defining the * Corresponding author Email addresses: erwan.bousse@tuwien.ac.at (Erwan Bousse), dorian.leroy@jku.at (Dorian Leroy), benoit.combemale@irit.fr (Benoit Combemale), wimmer@big.tuwien.ac.at (Manuel Wimmer), baudry@kth.se (Benoit Baudry)1 We arbitrarily use the term executable model since this work focuses on metamodel-based DSLs, but the term program can be used interchangeably.

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“…More recently, object-centric debuggers presented advanced stepping mechanisms targetting individual objects [RBN12]. Moldable debuggers [CGN14] [Copyright notice will appear here once 'preprint' option is removed. ] offer a different perspective to this problem: it should be possible to adapt a debugger to a given domain or task.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis and exploration for new generation debuggers

Dupriez

Polito

Ducasse

2017

Proceedings of the 12th Edition of the International Workshop on Smalltalk Technologies

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International audienceLocating and fixing bugs is a well-known time consuming task. Advanced approaches such as object-centric or back-in-time debuggers have been proposed in the literature, still in many scenarios developers are left alone with primitive tools such as manual breakpoints and execution stepping. In this position paper we explore several advanced on-line debugging techniques such as advanced breakpoints and on-line execution comparison, that could help developers solve complex debugging scenarios. We analyse the challenges and underlying mechanisms required by these techniques. We present some early but promising prototypes we built on the Pharo programming language. We finally identify future research paths by analysing existing research and connecting it to the techniques we presented before

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The Moldable Debugger: A Framework for Developing Domain-Specific Debuggers

Cited by 28 publications

References 42 publications

Practical domain-specific debuggers using the Moldable Debugger framework

Practical domain-specific debuggers using the Moldable Debugger framework

Omniscient debugging for executable DSLs

Analysis and exploration for new generation debuggers

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