Archive
Blog - technical-news - posts for November 2018
Nov 16 2018
DSpot Study on Ten Mature Open Source Projects
Improving existing Java test cases and give the improvements back to developers as patches or pull requests. Indeed, the idea is attractive. But is it yet an efficient and proven code optimisation process?
A scientific paper from Benjamin Danglot (Inria), co-signed with three more STAMP project contributors, tickles us to think so.
The PhD candidate provides a thorough study on ten notable and mature open source projects where all test methods from 40 unit test classes have been amplified by DSpot. This proves the STAMP tool ability to strengthen real unit test classes in Java.
More test automation will be offered in the future, requiring more understanding and comparison of test purposes. Moreover, DSpot can be placed in a continuous integration service (CI) where test classes would be amplified on-the-fly. This would greatly improve the industrial applicability of this software engineering research, conclude the authors.
- Title: Automatic Test Improvement with DSpot: a Study with Ten Mature Open-Source Projects
- Authors: Benjamin Danglot, Oscar Luis Vera-Pérez, Benoit Baudry, Martin Monperrus.
- Academic publication: Empirical Software Engineering, Springer Verlag, In press, pp.1-35. <hal-01923575>
Nov 13 2018
How software code perturbation can strengthen its reliability?
A recent IEEE blog article, by a group of researchers involved in the STAMP project reveals that, facing state perturbations, software might be more stable and reliable than expected.
This fascinating phenomenon is called "Correctness Attraction" in reference to the concepts of “stable equilibrium” and “attraction basin” in physics. It underlines input points for which a software system eventually reaches the same fixed and correct point according to a perturbation model.
Moreover, this could lead to new “bug absorbing zones” in software applications where software engineering techniques would improve the correctness attraction.
Discover the reasons behind correctness attraction in this blog post:
Nov 06 2018
Luc Esape, artificial software fixer, unmasked by The Register
Luc Esape, aka Repairnator, is unmasked! The Java software fixer recently earned a world class reputation as a smart bot, thanks to an article posted on The Register by Thomas Claburn, a real editor based in San Francisco (California).
The Register article is entitled: The mysterious life of Luc Esape, bug fixer extraordinaire. His big secret? He's not human
For the INRIA researchers at University of Lille within the Spirals team, this international recognition underlines the open source software ability to fix bugs through automatically generated patches, provided within minutes during the continuous integration and continuous delivery.
A quote from KTH Professor Martin Monperrus, Repairnator and STAMP contributor, confirms the bot track records. In a few weeks, Repairnator has produced five patches that have been accepted by human developers and merged into their respective code bases: "This is a milestone for human-competitiveness in software engineering research on automatic program repair", he explains.
The online article along with multiple comments also raise unsolved questions about patch legal responsibility and future DevOps careers.
- Read Thomas Claburn article in The Register: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/17/luc_esape_bug_fixer/
- Read Martin Monperrus blog post about Repairnator: https://medium.com/@martin.monperrus/human-competitive-patches-in-automatic-program-repair-with-repairnator-359042e00f6a