Strider: a black-box, state-based approach to change and configuration management and support

AbstractWe describe a new approach, called Strider, to Change and Configuration Management and Support (CCMS). Strider is a black-box approach: without relying on specifications, it uses state differencing to identify potential causes of differing program behaviors, uses state tracing to identify actual, run-time state dependencies, and uses statistical behavior modeling for noise filtering. Strider is a state-based approach: instead of linking vague, high level descriptions and symptoms to relevant actions, it models management and support problems in terms of individual, named pieces of low level configuration state and provides precise mappings to user-friendly information through a computer genomics database. We use troubleshooting of configuration failures to demonstrate that the Strider approach reduces problem complexity by several orders of magnitude, making root-cause analysis possible

Decibel: the relational dataset branching system

As scientific endeavors and data analysis become increasingly collaborative, there is a need for data management systems that natively support the versioning or branching of datasets to enable concurrent analysis, cleaning, integration, manipulation, or curation of data across teams of individuals. Common practice for sharing and collaborating on datasets involves creating or storing multiple copies of the dataset, one for each stage of analysis, with no provenance information tracking the relationships between these datasets. This results not only in wasted storage, but also makes it challenging to track and integrate modifications made by different users to the same dataset. In this paper, we introduce the Relational Dataset Branching System, Decibel, a new relational storage system with built-in version control designed to address these short-comings. We present our initial design for Decibel and provide a thorough evaluation of three versioned storage engine designs that focus on efficient query processing with minimal storage overhead. We also develop an exhaustive benchmark to enable the rigorous testing of these and future versioned storage engine designs.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (1513972)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (1513407)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (1513443)Intel Science and Technology Center for Big Dat

Consolidation of Customized Product Copies into Software Product Lines

In software development, project constraints lead to customer-specific variants by copying and adapting the product. During this process, modifications are scattered all over the code. Although this is flexible and efficient in the short term, a Software Product Line (SPL) offers better results in the long term, regarding cost reduction, time-to-market, and quality attributes. This book presents a novel approach named SPLevo, which consolidates customized product copies into an SPL

Bridging the Gulf of Envisioning: Cognitive Design Challenges in LLM Interfaces

Large language models (LLMs) exhibit dynamic capabilities and appear to comprehend complex and ambiguous natural language prompts. However, calibrating LLM interactions is challenging for interface designers and end-users alike. A central issue is our limited grasp of how human cognitive processes begin with a goal and form intentions for executing actions, a blindspot even in established interaction models such as Norman's gulfs of execution and evaluation. To address this gap, we theorize how end-users 'envision' translating their goals into clear intentions and craft prompts to obtain the desired LLM response. We define a process of Envisioning by highlighting three misalignments: (1) knowing whether LLMs can accomplish the task, (2) how to instruct the LLM to do the task, and (3) how to evaluate the success of the LLM's output in meeting the goal. Finally, we make recommendations to narrow the envisioning gulf in human-LLM interactions

Consolidation of Customized Product Copies into Software Product Lines

In software development, project constraints lead to customer-specific variants by copying and adapting the product. During this process, modifications are scattered all over the code. Although this is flexible and efficient in the short term, a Software Product Line (SPL) offers better results in the long term, regarding cost reduction, time-to-market, and quality attributes. This book presents a novel approach named SPLevo, which consolidates customized product copies into an SPL

Semi-Automatische Deduktion von Feature-Lokalisierung während der Softwareentwicklung: Masterarbeit

Despite extensive research on software product lines in the last decades, ad-hoc clone-and-own development is still the dominant way for introducing variability to software systems. Therefore, the same issues for which software product lines were developed in the first place are still imminent in clone-and-own development: Fixing bugs consistently throughout clones and avoiding duplicate implementation effort is extremely diffcult as similarities and differences between variants are unknown. In order to remedy this, we enhance clone-and-own development with techniques from product-line engineering for targeted variant synchronisation such that domain knowledge can be integrated stepwise and without obligation. Contrary to retroactive feature mapping recovery (e.g., mining) techniques, we infer feature-to-code mappings directly during software development when concrete domain knowledge is present. In this thesis, we focus on the first step towards targeted synchronisation between variants: the recording of feature mappings. By letting developers specify on which feature they are working on, we derive feature mappings directly during software development. We ensure syntactic validity of feature mappings and variant synchronisation by implementing disciplined annotations through abstract syntax trees. To bridge the mismatch between change classification in the implementation and abstract layer, we synthesise semantic edits on abstract syntax trees. We show that our derivation can be used to reproduce variability-related real-world code changes and compare it to the feature mapping derivation of the projectional variation control system VTS by Stanciulescu et al.Trotz umfangreicher Forschung zu Software-Produktlinien in den letzten Jahrzehnten ist Clone-and-Own immer noch der dominierende Ansatz zur Einführung von Variabilität in Softwaresystemen. Daher stehen bei Clone-and-Own immer noch die gleichen Probleme im Vordergrund, für die Software-Produktlinien überhaupt erst entwickelt wurden: Die konsistente Behebung von Fehlern in allen Klonen und die Vermeidung von doppeltem Implementierungsaufwand sind äußerst schwierig, da Ähnlichkeiten und Unterschiede zwischen den Varianten unbekannt sind. Um hier Abhilfe zu schaffen, erweitern wir die Clone-and-Own-Entwicklung mit Techniken aus der Produktlinien-Entwicklung zur gezielten Synchronisierung von Varianten, sodass Entwickler ihr Domänenwissen schrittweise und unverbindlich integrieren können. Im Gegensatz zu nachträglich arbeitenden Feature-Mapping-Recovery- oder auch Mining-Techniken, leiten wir Zuordungen von Features zu Quellcode direkt während der Softwareentwicklung ab, wenn konkretes Domänenwissen vorhanden ist. In dieser Arbeit entwickeln wir den ersten Schritt zur gezielten Synchronisation von Varianten: die Aufzeichnung von Feature-Mappings. Indem Entwickler spezifizieren an welchem Feature sie arbeiten, leiten wir Feature-Mappings direkt während der Softwareentwicklung ab. Wir stellen die syntaktische Korrektheit von Feature-Mappings und der Synchronisation von Varianten sicher, indem wir disziplinierte Annotationen mithilfe von abstrakten Syntaxbäumen implementieren. Um die Diskrepanz der Klassifizierung von Änderungen zwischen der Implementierungs- und der Abstraktionsschicht zu überbrücken, synthetisieren wir Semantic Edits auf abstrakten Syntaxbäumen. Wir zeigen, dass unsere Ableitung von Feature-Mappings in der Lage ist reale Codeänderungen zu reproduzieren und vergleichen sie mit der Feature-Mapping-Ableitung des Variationskontrollsystems VTS von Stanciulescu et al