Managing Software Defects

Abstract

Developers use bug tracking systems to manage the defects that arise during software development. Those systems allow the users to submit reports that describe the failure and the possible causes that led to the error. Bug trackers have evolved and adapted their interfaces to guide the user through the submission of relevant information. However, despite the refinement of the interfaces and improvements, such as the gathering of metadata describing the runtime context, the description of a defect is still composed of plain text. This representation allows flexibility in describing a defect, but the information included in the report is hard to extract and interpret, thus representing an ineffective and unintuitive method to precisely describe a problem. Our work aims to improve the workflow of developers in dealing with bug reports. This begins with promoting a bug report -- often considered as a side effect of the development process -- to independent entity with specific properties that can be exploited to describe and understand a system. We believe that, by automating the steps that lead to the creation of a bug report, we can generate meaningful information that can be automatically elaborated to produce insightful views on the failure environment, like interactive visualizations or linking with artifacts produced during development, and aid the interpretation of a bug report. Finally, we want to integrate the reporting process with elements from game design theory, to stimulate interaction between developers and people in the community and create fruitful cooperation in software ecosystems.