The Moldable Debugger: A Framework for Developing Domain-Specific Debuggers
Publisher DOI
Abstract
Debuggers are crucial tools for developing object-oriented software systems as they give developers direct access to the running systems. Nevertheless, traditional debuggers rely on generic mechanisms to explore and exhibit the execution stack and system state, while developers reason about and formulate domain-specific questions using concepts and abstractions from their application domains. This creates an abstraction gap between the debugging needs and the debugging support leading to an inefficient and error-prone debugging effort. To reduce this gap, we propose a framework for developing domain-specific debuggers called the Moldable Debugger. 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. We 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.
Date Issued
2014
Publication Type
Conference Item
Subjects
scg-pub snf-asa
•
scg14 jb15 debugging
•
development environments
•
customization
Language(s)
en
Editor(s)
Combemale, Benoî | |
Pearce, David J. | |
Barais, Olivier | |
Vinju, Jurgen J. |
Additional Credits
Publisher
Springer International Publishing
ISBN
978-3-319-11244-2
Title of Event
Access(Rights)
restricted