Software Ticks Need No Specifications

Christoph Reichenbach

doi:10.1109/ICSE-NIER52604.2021.00021

Software Ticks Need No Specifications

Christoph Reichenbach

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Paper in conference proceeding › peer-review

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Abstract

Software bugs cost time, money, and lives. They drive software research and development efforts, and are central to modern software engineering. Yet we lack a clear and general definition of what bugs are. Some bugs are defects, clearly defined as failures to meet some requirement or specification. However,there are many forms of undesirable program behaviour that are completely compatible with a typical program’s specification. In this paper, we argue that the lack of a criterion for identifying non-defect bugs is hampering the development of tools that find and fix bugs. We propose such a criterion, based on the idea of wasted effort, discuss how bugs that meet our definition of software ticks can complement defects, and sketch how our definition can help future work on software tools.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering
Publisher	IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSE-NIER52604.2021.00021
Publication status	Published - 2021
Event	43rd International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Practice, ICSE 2021 - Virtual Duration: 2021 May 23 → 2021 May 29

Conference

Conference	43rd International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Practice, ICSE 2021
City	Virtual
Period	2021/05/23 → 2021/05/29

Subject classification (UKÄ)

Computer Science

Access to Document

10.1109/ICSE-NIER52604.2021.00021

ticks-NIERSubmitted manuscript, 131 KB

1 Finished

WASP startup package Christoph Reichenbach
Reichenbach, C.
2017/10/16 → 2021/10/15
Project: Research

Cite this

@inproceedings{f0620bad888e48fdafede41a95ba31e6,

title = "Software Ticks Need No Specifications",

abstract = "Software bugs cost time, money, and lives. They drive software research and development efforts, and are central to modern software engineering. Yet we lack a clear and general definition of what bugs are. Some bugs are defects, clearly defined as failures to meet some requirement or specification. However,there are many forms of undesirable program behaviour that are completely compatible with a typical program{\textquoteright}s specification. In this paper, we argue that the lack of a criterion for identifying non-defect bugs is hampering the development of tools that find and fix bugs. We propose such a criterion, based on the idea of wasted effort, discuss how bugs that meet our definition of software ticks can complement defects, and sketch how our definition can help future work on software tools.",

author = "Christoph Reichenbach",

year = "2021",

doi = "10.1109/ICSE-NIER52604.2021.00021",

language = "English",

booktitle = "Proceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering",

publisher = "IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.",

address = "United States",

note = "43rd International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Practice, ICSE 2021 ; Conference date: 23-05-2021 Through 29-05-2021",

}

Reichenbach, C 2021, Software Ticks Need No Specifications. in Proceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering. IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Practice, ICSE 2021, Virtual, 2021/05/23. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSE-NIER52604.2021.00021

TY - GEN

T1 - Software Ticks Need No Specifications

AU - Reichenbach, Christoph

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - Software bugs cost time, money, and lives. They drive software research and development efforts, and are central to modern software engineering. Yet we lack a clear and general definition of what bugs are. Some bugs are defects, clearly defined as failures to meet some requirement or specification. However,there are many forms of undesirable program behaviour that are completely compatible with a typical program’s specification. In this paper, we argue that the lack of a criterion for identifying non-defect bugs is hampering the development of tools that find and fix bugs. We propose such a criterion, based on the idea of wasted effort, discuss how bugs that meet our definition of software ticks can complement defects, and sketch how our definition can help future work on software tools.

AB - Software bugs cost time, money, and lives. They drive software research and development efforts, and are central to modern software engineering. Yet we lack a clear and general definition of what bugs are. Some bugs are defects, clearly defined as failures to meet some requirement or specification. However,there are many forms of undesirable program behaviour that are completely compatible with a typical program’s specification. In this paper, we argue that the lack of a criterion for identifying non-defect bugs is hampering the development of tools that find and fix bugs. We propose such a criterion, based on the idea of wasted effort, discuss how bugs that meet our definition of software ticks can complement defects, and sketch how our definition can help future work on software tools.

U2 - 10.1109/ICSE-NIER52604.2021.00021

DO - 10.1109/ICSE-NIER52604.2021.00021

M3 - Paper in conference proceeding

BT - Proceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering

PB - IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.

T2 - 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Practice, ICSE 2021

Y2 - 23 May 2021 through 29 May 2021

ER -

Software Ticks Need No Specifications

Abstract

Conference

Subject classification (UKÄ)

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WASP startup package Christoph Reichenbach

Cite this