Although considerable effort has been invested in developing methods for testing and failure detection, synthesis of programs from abstract models and verification of programs (and models), techniques for locating the root cause of observed program failures are still relatively immature. Therefore, the utility for general testing and debugging techniques remain limited to specific programs, execution environments, and problem contexts. Furthermore, no plug&play toolset exists providing state-of-the-art techniques to help developers with testing and debugging. In this talk, we will discuss current state-of-the-art techniques for testing and debugging and how the combination of all these techniques helps to gain a better understanding of the software application. The techniques discussed in the talk are available within a plugin for the Eclipse IDE, coined GZoltar.

Short Bio: Rui Abreu holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science - Software Engineering from the Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, and a M.Sc. in Computer and Systems Engineering from the University of Minho, Portugal. His research revolves around software quality, with emphasis in automating the testing and debugging phases of the software development life-cycle as well as self-adaptation. Dr. Abreu has extensive expertise in both static and dynamic analysis algorithms for improving software quality. He is the recipient of 5 Best Paper Awards, and his work has attracted considerable attention. Before joining IST @ U.Lisboa as an Associate Professor, he was a member of the Model-Based Reasoning group at PARC’s System and Sciences Laboratory and an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto.