Who I Am

I am a PhD student working at the Software Engineering Chair (Prof. Zeller) at Saarland University. I am interested in all sorts of systematic (and automated) debugging, especially dynamic analysis and capture/replay of programs.

I maintain several projects related to my research and courses at this chair. In my resume, you can find further information about my education, work experience, and special skills.

Research & Projects

The focus of my research is on automated debugging, in particular on applying delta debugging to find failure-inducing circumstances automatically—circumstances such as the program input, changes to the program code, or program executions. In addition, I am interested in all sorts of automation related to software development, for instance build and test automation.

Usually, my research results in usable tools, for instance DDchange, a debugging framework and provided tools that automatically determine failure-inducing program changes. Currently, I am working on JINSI, a tool that replays and isolates failure-inducing program interactions.

See my detailed research interests and my projects for more details.

Publications

My latest publication Replaying and Isolating Failing Multi-Object Interactions was published at the Sixth International Workshop on Dynamic Analysis (WODA 2008) in Seattle, Washington, USA.

Abstract: When a program fails, there are typically multiple objects that contribute to the failure. Our JINSI tool automatically captures the failure-causing interaction between objects and isolates a sequence of calls that all are relevant for reproducing the failure. In contrast to existing work, JINSI also isolates relevant interaction within the observed component and thus across all layers of a complex application. In a proof of concept, JINSI has successfully isolated the interaction for a failure of the COLUMBA e-mail client, pinpointing the defect: "Out of the 187,532 interactions in the addressbook component, two~incoming calls suffice to reproduce the failure."

You can download this paper as PDF file.

All my publications

You can find an exhaustive list of my publications at the chair’s publications page. Most of them can be downloaded as PDF file.

Presentations

Usually, I upload my presentations to SlideShare.

Teaching

Currently, I am supervising the proseminar "13 Wochen - 13 Sprachen" (in German): 13 programming languages in 13 weeks.

In summer semester 2007, I supervised the lecture "Programmierung 2": Learn how to program on a large scale.

In summer semester 2006, I supervised the advanced lecture "Automated Debugging": Why does my program fail? Learn how to find failure causes automatically.

Looking for a bachelor/master thesis?

In order to get a feeling of what I'm interested in, you can check out my research, projects, and my my publications page. If you are interested, just contact me and we will see if we can find a suitable topic.

Contact

During office hours, you may either phone me (0681 302 - 64783) or pay me a visit in room 327. If I'm not physically available, just send an e-mail. If you prefer a fast answer, give me a call.