[FR-devel] A new approach to debugging

[Curt Hibbs]

I thought you might find this interesting.

Curt


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http://www.newscientist.com/news/print.jsp?id=ns99992757


Musical approach helps programmers catch bugs

09:32 05 September 02
Will Knight


Making music out of computer code is helping programmers to catch the bugs
that can cause software to go awry.

Computer code is often prone to errors that are difficult to spot. In a long
program, made perhaps of hundreds or thousands of lines of programming
language code, it is possible for the writer to misjudge how the various
elements of the software will work together.

So-called debugging software can iron this out, by letting people look at a
graphical representation of a program. This helps find bugs by highlighting
which parts of a program are communicating with others.

But the computer's sound capabilities are ignored in debugging, says Paul
Vickers at the University of Northumbria. "It's sitting there as a
completely unused channel, while lots of effort is being put into
visualisation tools."

So Vickers and James Alty of Loughborough University developed a system that
automatically converts computer program code written in Pascal into simple
"music".

Stephen Brewster, who specialises in programming theory at the University of
Glasgow, believes the music may well help programmers verify code. "Your
ears are extremely good at picking up temporal patterns," Brewster says.
"Sometimes better than eyes."


Wrong note


Vickers and Alty assigned particular musical phrases to different Pascal
language constructs, such as conditional statements and loops. A synthesised
chord, for example, represents conditional statements such as "IF TRUE". A
loop could have an ascending string of synthesised notes associated with it.

When different sections of code are put together, they should form a
harmonious tune. But if a loop, for example, does not execute properly, the
music would not ascend properly and the programmer should hear the error.
Similarly, a duff statement would produce a different chord that would be
immediately apparent.

Vickers tested the system on 22 computer science students at Loughborough
University. They had to find errors in a buggy program by scrolling through
the code. But some of them could hear a musical representation of the
program at the same time.


Musical aptitude


Overall, those who "heard" the code identified more bugs. "When they heard
the music, they found more bugs," says Vickers. "It was statistically
significant enough to indicate it is worth taking further." But it is
unclear how much this may be due to the ability of each programmer, or their
individual musical aptitude, so Vickers plans more tests.

Alan Blackwell at Cambridge University, an expert on the psychology of
computer programming, believes "auralisation" of program code can assist
with some forms of problem-solving activity. But he says further research is
needed to see if it is any better than other representations.

Brewster hopes that future software development tools will include some
simple sound abilities. "There would be lots of interesting things people
could find out about their programs, by listening to them as well as looking
at them," he says.


09:32 05 September 02

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