Speculative analysis: exploring future development states of software

Most software tools and environments help developers analyze the present and past development states of their software systems. Few approaches have investigated the potential consequences of future actions the developers may perform. The commoditization of hardware, multi-core architectures, and cloud computing provide new potential for delivering apparently-instantaneous feedback to developers, informing them of the effects of changes that they may be considering to the software. For example, modern IDEs often provide "quick fix" suggestions for resolving compilation errors. Developers must scan this list and select the option they think will resolve the problem. Instead, we propose that the IDE should speculatively perform each of the suggestions in the background and provide information that helps developers select the best option for the given context. We believe the feedback enabled by speculative operations can improve developer productivity and software quality. Categ...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: SIGSOFT
• Authors: Yuriy Brun, Reid Holmes, Michael D. Ernst, David Notkin
• Keywords: Quick Fix, SIGSOFT 2010, Software, Software Engineering