Initial experiences with a pattern-oriented parallel debugger
PADD '88 Proceedings of the 1988 ACM SIGPLAN and SIGOPS workshop on Parallel and distributed debugging
A bibliography of parallel debuggers, 1990 edition
ACM SIGPLAN Notices
Logical time in visualizations produced by parallel programs
VIS '92 Proceedings of the 3rd conference on Visualization '92
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DEBUGGING IS AN ACTIVITY THAT ATTEMPTS TO LOCATE THE SOURCES OF ERRORS IN THE SPECIFICATION AND CODING OF A SOFTWARE SYSTEM AND TO SUGGEST POSS- IBLE REPAIRS THAT MIGHT BE MADE TO CORRECT THE ERRORS. DEBUGGING COMPLEX DISTRIBUTED PROGRAMS IS A FRUSTRATING AND DIFFICULT TASK. THIS IS DUE PRIMARILY TO THE PREDOMINANCE OF A LOW-LEVEL, COMPUTATION-UNIT VIEW OF SYS- TEMS. THIS EXTANT PERSPECTIVE IS NECESSARILY DETAIL INTENSIVE AND OFFERS LITTLE AID IN DEALING WITH THE HIGHER LEVEL OPERATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF A SYSTEM OR THE COMPLEXITIES INHERENT IN DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS. IN THIS DISSERTATION WE DEVELOP A HIGH-LEVEL DEBUGGING APPROACH IN WHICH DEBUGGING IS VIEWED AS A PROCESS OF CREATING MODELS OF ACTUAL BEHAVIOR. THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE ACTUAL AND EXPECTED MODELS CAN BE USED TO CHARAC- TERIZE ERRORFUL BEHAVIOR. THE BASIS FOR THE APPROACH IS VIEWING THE ACTIV- ITY OF A SYSTEM AS CONSISTING OF A STREAM OF SIGNIFICANT, DISTINGUISHABLE EVENTS THAT MAY BE ABSTRACTED INTO HIGH-LEVEL MODELS OF SYSTEM BEHAVIOR. AN EXAMPLE IS PRESENTED TO DEMONSTRATE THE USE OF EVENT BASED MODEL BUILD- ING TO INVESTIGATE AN ERROR IN A DISTRIBUTED PROGRAM. BEHAVIOR ABSTRACTION AND SYSTEM UNDERSTANDING ARE CHARACTERIZED AS PROB- LEMS IN PATTERN RECOGNITION THAT MUST OPERATE IN A NOISY, UNCERTAIN ENVIR- ONMENT. PATTERN RECOGNITION IN SUPPORT OF BEHAVIORAL ABSTRACTION IS THUS SHOWN TO BE MORE THAN A SIMPLE PARSING EXERCISE. A FORMAL MODEL IS DEVELOP