November 19, 2003
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For immediate release -
Igor! Go fetch bugs!
Your program does not work? The „AskIgor“ Web service automatically finds out why.
Researchers of
Bugs in computer
programs cause damages in the billions of dollars. According to a 2002 study of
the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, improvements in testing
and debugging could save users and vendors costs of 22.5 billion US$ per year.
Igor is the first tool
to determine failure causes automatically. This is how it works: Igor
compares two program runs – a working run and a failing run. Using a number of
tests, the process narrows down the failure-inducing difference to the actual
failure cause. Initially, Igor focuses
on Linux programs; next year, the technique will be extended to Windows and Java programs. In the long
term, Zeller’s tools will not only automatically create diagnoses, but also suggestions for fixes.
A year ago, Prof.
Zeller presented his first research results at the ACM SIGSOFT conference in
- more -
Zeller’s works on
automated debugging have received numerous awards, including the Ernst-Denert Award
for Software Engineering, the ACM SIGSOFT
Distinguished Paper Award and IBM’s Eclipse
Innovation Award. Besides automated debugging, his group works on
experimental program analysis, data-mining version archives, self-rescuing
programs and the detection of security leaks.
The Software Engineering chair on the Web:
Questions or comments?
Please contact Prof. Dr.
Phone +49 (0)681/302-64011,
Fax +49 (0)681/302-64012, E-Mail: zeller@cs.uni-sb.de.
Visit www.AskIgor.org/press to find pictures and further information.