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Integrating Interactive Visualizations of Automatic Debugging Techniques on an Integrated Development Environment

Published: 01 July 2012 Publication History

Abstract

Automated debugging techniques based on statistical analysis of historical test executions data have recently received considerable attention due to their diagnostic capabilities. However, the tools that materialize such techniques suffer from a common, rather important shortcoming: the lack of effective diagnostic reports' visualizations. This limitation prevents the wide adoption of such tools, as it is difficult to understand the diagnostic reports yielded by them. To fill this gap, the authors propose a framework for integrating interactive visualizations of automatic debugging reports in a popular development environment namely, the Eclipse integrated development environment. The framework, coined GZoltar, provides several important features to aid the developer's efficiency to find the root cause of observed failures quickly, such as direct links to the source code editor. Furthermore, the authors report on the results of a user study conducted to assess GZoltar's effectiveness.

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Published In

cover image International Journal of Creative Interfaces and Computer Graphics
International Journal of Creative Interfaces and Computer Graphics  Volume 3, Issue 2
July 2012
59 pages
ISSN:1947-3117
EISSN:1947-3125
Issue’s Table of Contents

Publisher

IGI Global

United States

Publication History

Published: 01 July 2012

Author Tags

  1. Diagnostic Reports
  2. Information Systems
  3. Interaction
  4. Statistical Debugging
  5. Visualization

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