Re: Debugging Theory

@Ranan Fraer (rfraer@sophia.inria.fr) wrote:
@: can anyone please recommend me some good books/papers on debugging theory ?


Theory's edict is "you can't"; and practice advises: "don't"!


In full generality theory has results you may be better off not
      knowing. Let Ts be Turing Machines/programs/algorithms/... Then
      a) the question "Do T and T' compute the same (partial) function?"
            is undecidable
      b) the problem "Given T, find a T' that computes a different function"
            is unsolvable.


So, no algorithm can tell whether two arbitrary TMs are "the same",
      or, given one TM, produce a "different" one; i.e., you cannot tell whether
      a program does what is wanted... and moreover you cannot change it anyway!
      (At 3 a.m. one might need some wry amusement).


Fortunately in practice we don't face the full situation; still, such
      results support the familiar view: focus on avoiding debugging. We cut it
      down by careful design, good style, formal correctness methods if applica-
      ble, and so on. And an attitude of looking for more.


Ilias
[I don't think that was quite the question he asked. There has been some
interesting work over the years in identifying and classifying bugs. -John]




--

Return to the comp.compilers page.
Search the comp.compilers archives again.