[ecoop-info] CFP - JSS Special Issue on Program Debugging

[Xiaoyuan Xie]

Elsevier Journal of Systems and Software

Special Issue on Program Debugging

Call for Papers

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*CFP WEBPAGE*

http://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-systems-and-software/call-for-pa
pers/special-issueon-program-debugging

 

 

*DESCRIPTION* 

Software today is not only larger and more complex than ever before, but
also has much tighter schedule and more frequent releases. Consequently,
debugging, which is one of the most important tasks during software
lifecycle, is facing greater challenges. While purely manual debugging is
regarded as inefficient and expensive under this circumstance, a great
amount of techniques are presented as complementary, for the sake of less
human involvement and higher efficiency.

 

These techniques range from fault localization in terms of both white and
black box, to automatic bug fixing. However, they are still suffering from
immaturity and impracticality. On one hand, some light-weight automatic
debugging techniques cannot provide accurate or consistent results to
pinpoint the locations of faults to a desired degree. For example, they may
have ambiguities of distinguishing executions in the presence of multiple
causative faults, or encounter difficulties in reliably recording and
replaying failed executions. These uncertainties may lead to bug fixes that
introduce even more faults into the software. On the other hand, some formal
approaches that are considered to have better precision, are generally
suffering from complexity and scalability problems, which limit their
application in practice.

 

Furthermore, most of current empirical analyses are lab-based. It is very
common that researchers rely on simplified assumptions or models, and
evaluate their approaches on selected subject programs that do not
accurately reflect the complexity in large-scale industrial software and
related development processes. Besides, as complementary to manual
debugging, these techniques generally require programmers to view and
comprehend the automatic debugging results in order to make final decisions.
In other words, human factors are generally inevitable during the debugging.
However, related works are not adequate. These shortcomings have severely
prohibited these techniques actually benefiting practitioners in the real
world.

 

 

*OBJECTIVES AND TOPICS*

The aim of this special issue is to document new contributions in program
debugging. We are looking for high-quality submissions on the latest
challenges, breakthroughs, and future trends.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

 

* Strategies for effective and efficient program debugging

* Challenges and emerging techniques in program debugging for large scale
real-life applications and domain-specific applications

* Debugging for multi-(core, process, or threaded) programs

* Empirical studies and open source-based benchmarking infrastructure

* Experience reports and industrial best practices

* Impacts of software business, human factors, programming languages, and
tool environments on program debugging

* Integrating debugging with other software development and maintenance
activities

* Social aspects of program debugging

* Software risk analysis and cost estimation for fault localization, bug
fixing, and their social interactions

* Transitioning from research to practice

* Pedagogical models for effectively teaching program debugging

 

Submissions from academia and industry reporting original research results
or practical experience are welcome. All submissions should consider the
practical application of the idea through case studies, experiments,
empirical validation, or systematic comparisons with other approaches
already in practice.

 

 

*IMPORTANT DATES*

Paper submission deadline: February 28, 2017

Submission deadline of the final revised version: August 31, 2017.

 

 

*GUEST EDITORS*

Markus Stumptner, University of South Australia, Australia

Xiaoyuan Xie, Wuhan University, China

T. H. Tse, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

 

 

*EDITOR-IN-CHIEF*

Hans van Vliet

 

 

*SPECIAL ISSUES EDITOR*

W.K. Chan

 

 

*SUBMISSION INFORMATION*

All manuscripts and any supplementary material should be submitted through
the Elsevier Editorial System for the Journal of Systems and Software at
http://ees.elsevier.com/jss/

Follow the submission instructions given on this site. Please select the
article type as "SI: Program Debugging". All manuscripts should comply with
the journal's submission guidelines.

Detailed author guidelines are available at
http://www.elsevier.com/journals/journal-of-systems-and-software/0164-1212/g
uide-for-authors

Manuscripts must not have been published previously or be currently under
consideration for publication in any other journal or conference.

 

 

*DECISIONS*

Submissions will be reviewed by at least three experts in the field. The
primary evaluation criteria are: high-quality of the submission, innovative
aspects in the domain of test oracles, practical applications of proposed
idea(s), and thorough evaluation. The guest editors in consultation with the
Editor-in-Chief and the Special Issues Editor will make final decisions.

 

 

*CONTACT*

If you have any questions concerning the topics and scope of this special
issue please do not hesitate to contact the lead guest editor Xiaoyuan Xie
at xxie at whu.edu.cn.