Swarm Debugging is an approach to collect, store, and share debugging session information among developers to help construct a shared debugging knowledge. It features tools to visualize debugging sessions through dynamic method call graphs and sequence stack diagrams. The tools also allow searching for starting points and breakpoints used in previous debugging sessions on software projects. The goal is to help developers find suitable breakpoints and understand debugging sessions through collective intelligence. Future work includes experimental evaluation, adding versioning capabilities, and developing new visualizations.

1. Swarm Debugging:
towards a shared debugging
knowledge
INF-UFRGS/FacIn-UniRitter
Fabio
Petrillo
Guilherme
Lacerda
Marcelo
Pimenta
Carla
Freitas
III Workshop on Software Visualization, Evolution, and
Maintenance (VEM)
III Workshop on Software Visualization, Evolution, and
Maintenance (VEM)

2. Motivation
Debugging
 Is very adopted
 Is an effective practice for software investigation/
comprehension
 Helps developers to construct their knowledge
But…
 Is an unexplored area
 An isolated/individual activity

3. Motivation
Then…
How can we develop tools/practices to
helping this task?
How to share their acquired knowledge
during a debbuging session?

4. Motivation
Our approach
 Collecting and sharing debugging session
information
 Create new visualizations and searching
tools

5. Presenting…
Swarm Debugging

6. Infrastructure

7. Infrastructure

8. Metadata

9. How it Works

10. Main Features
Search Tools
Breakpoints, startpoints, endpoints, full-
text source code
Visualization Tools
Dynamic method call graph, sequence stack
diagram, swarm dashboard

11. Dynamic method call graph

12. Sequence stack diagram

13. Video

14. Swarm Debugging
Swarm Debugging in action

15. Swarm Debugging
Dashboard

16. Discussion
Usage Scenarios
 Finding suitable breakpoints
 Visualizating debugging sessions
 Creating collective intelligence

17. Contributions
 an approach to collect, store and share debugging
session information
 tool for visualizing context-aware debugging
sessions
 tool for searching starting points and breakpoints
about software projects based on shared session
information collected by developers

18. Future Work
 Experimental evaluation
 Versioning
 Tool improvements
 New visualizations

19. Questions?

20. Thanks!
Fábio Petrillo, Guilherme Lacerda, Marcelo Pimenta, Carla Freitas
{fspetrillo,gslacerda,mpimenta,carla}@inf.ufrgs.br
INF-UFRGS/FacIn-UniRitter
III Workshop on Software Visualization, Evolution, and
Maintenance (VEM)