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competitivedebugging towardcontests promoting debugging as a skill patrick rein tombeckmann leonard geier hasso plattner institute hasso plattner institute hasso plattner institute university of potsdam university of potsdam university of potsdam ...

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                                                            CompetitiveDebugging
                                                  TowardContests Promoting Debugging as a Skill
                                   Patrick Rein                                   TomBeckmann                                        Leonard Geier
                             Hasso Plattner Institute                          Hasso Plattner Institute                          Hasso Plattner Institute
                              University of Potsdam                             University of Potsdam                             University of Potsdam
                                Potsdam, Germany                                  Potsdam, Germany                                  Potsdam, Germany
                       patrick.rein@hpi.uni-potsdam.de                 tom.beckmann@hpi.uni-potsdam.de                    leonard.geier@hpi.uni-potsdam.de
                                                            Toni Mattis                                  Robert Hirschfeld
                                                      Hasso Plattner Institute                          Hasso Plattner Institute
                                                       University of Potsdam                             University of Potsdam
                                                         Potsdam, Germany                                  Potsdam, Germany
                                                toni.mattis@hpi.uni-potsdam.de                   robert.hirschfeld@uni-potsdam.de
                 Abstract                                                                        CCSConcepts: ˆ Social and professional topics → Com-
                 Debugging is an essential part of software development. Nu-                     puting education; ˆ Software and its engineering → Soft-
                 merous tools and techniques to improve debugging have                           waremaintenancetools.
                 beenproposedinresearchordevelopedintheindustry.How-                             Keywords: debugging, competitive debugging, competition,
                 ever, only a few of those see widespread use, and debugging                     contest, teaching, training
                 only rarely is a primary teaching subject.
                    Topromotedebuggingasadistinctskill,weproposeCom-                             ACMReferenceFormat:
                 petitive Debugging, where participants compete on who can                       PatrickRein,TomBeckmann,LeonardGeier,ToniMattis,andRobert
                 repair a failure the fastest or the most comprehensively. We                    Hirschfeld.2022.CompetitiveDebugging:TowardContestsPromot-
                 further propose a format for debugging contests aimed at                        ing Debugging as a Skill. In Proceedings of the 2022 ACM SIGPLAN
                 attracting and engaging participants to motivate them to                        International Symposium on New Ideas, New Paradigms, and Reflec-
                 improve their debugging skills. In our proposed format par-                     tions on Programming and Software (Onward! ’22), December 8ś10,
                                                                                                 2022, Auckland, New Zealand. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 13 pages.
                 ticipants simultaneouslyworkonthesamefailureorobserve                           https://doi.org/10.1145/3563835.3567665
                 fellow participants during their debugging activity. To eval-
                 uate the format, we ran two pilots and one main event. We                       1 Introduction
                 found that the format prompted participants to reflect on
                 their debugging process, that the format allowed them to                        Programmers spend considerable time debugging the pro-
                 comparetheirdebuggingapproachestoothersthroughpost-                             grams they are working on. Depending on the study, debug-
                 round discussions on their various approaches, and that the                     ging takes up 13% to 40% percent of programmers’ software
                 format was enjoyable and engaging for all participants. We                      development time [2, 23][28, p.8-2]. Correspondingly, to
                 present our format of a debugging contest, an evaluation of                     improve debugging, the research communities on program-
                 the trial runs we performed, and give guidance for other peo-                   minglanguagesandsoftwareengineering have developed
                 ple who consider hosting a Competitive Debugging event.                         numerousdebuggingstrategies and tools, such as general-
                    Ultimately, we aim to provide developers with opportu-                       izedbackwardreasoning[33],time-traveldebuggers[17,24],
                 nities to improve their debugging skills. Our observations                      andautomatic debugging tools [32].
                 indicate that Competitive Debugging can provide such op-                           However, most programmers use few of these tools and
                 portunities to train debugging techniques and learn new                         techniques in practice, although they would benefit from
                 tools.                                                                          them [8, 23]. Programmers either do not know about ad-
                                                                                                 vanced tools [23] or do not know how to set them up and
                 Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for       make efficient use of them [30]. The reason for this mis-
                 personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are       match may be a lack of education and training on debug-
                 not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies      ging [2, 22, 23].
                 bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-
                 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Interna-            Atthesametime,researchers also found that debugging
                 tional License.
                 party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact      skills can be taught [19]. Numerous studies have shown
                 the owner/author(s).                                                            that when students learn and train debugging skills, they
                 Onward! ’22, December 8ś10, 2022, Auckland, New Zealand                         employ systematic debugging techniques more often and
                 ©2022Copyrightheldbytheowner/author(s).
                 ACMISBN978-1-4503-9909-8/22/12.                                                 become more productive at debugging [19, 21]. Neverthe-
                 https://doi.org/10.1145/3563835.3567665                                         less, debugging seems to be seldom taught extensively and
                                                                                           172
                Onward! ’22, December 8ś10, 2022, Auckland, New Zealand                                     P. Rein, T. Beckmann, L. Geier, T. Mattis, R. Hirschfeld
                                                                                          andtheactual event (see Section 5)1. Finally, we discuss gen-
                                                                                          eral considerations when planing a debugging contest (see
                                                                                          Section 6).
                                                                                          2 Background
                                                                                          Debugging is a skill that requires knowledge and experi-
                                                                                          ence with debugging techniques and tools. At present, many
                                                                                          programmershavereceived little education and training in
                                                                                          debugging. Competitions can be a way to foster such educa-
                                                                                          tion and training of a software development skill, as shown
                                                                                          byavariety of competitions in other fields such as general
                                                                                          programmingorcybersecurity.
                                                                                             In the remainder of the paper, we will refer to the wrong
                                                                                          section of code as the defect or fault, the wrong run-time
                Figure 1. The trophy for the first place of our first Competi-            state as the infection, and the observable, unexpected system
                tive Debugging event: the golden łbugž.                                   behavior as the failure.
                                                                                          2.1    TheNeedforDebuggingEducation
                                                                                          Debugging is an integral activity during software devel-
                                                                                                     28]. At the same time, debugging is a skill sepa-
                                                                                          opment [
                                                                                          rate from programming, requiring specialized education and
                systematically. One reason for this lack of training may be               training. This is underlined by several studies that illustrate
                that teachers and students do not regard debugging as much                that, at least for students, good programmers are not nec-
                a distinct skill as they regard programming.                              essarily good debuggers, while most good debuggers are
                   Tomakedebuggingmoreprominentasaskill,wepropose                         also good programmers [1, 9, 20]. Although debugging is
                the idea of Competitive Debugging. At a debugging contest,                important in everyday software development, most software
                contestants from beginners to experts gather to competi-                  developers have not received considerable training on de-
                tively find and repair defects.                                           bugging techniques and tools [23].
                   Alongwithhighlightingdebuggingasaskill,theseevents                        Programmersdeveloping software regularly debug their
                also directly serve as a way to teach debugging. By observ-               systems, to get code that they are currently working on
                ing fellow contestants, participants can learn how to best                running, to repair code written in the past, or to better un-
                employ debugging tools and strategies or reflect on their                 derstand the system and it actually behaves. Depending on
                owntechniquesthroughobservingthedebuggingprocess                          the study, programmers do debugging between 13% to 40%
                of others.                                                                of their programming time [2, 23][28, p.8-2].
                   Further, debugging contests may also help disseminate                     Although debugging takes up such a large portion of de-
                knowledge about the existence and application of advanced                 velopment time and debugging is a distinct skill, studies
                programmingtools.                                                         repeatedly find that education and training on debugging
                   In this paper, we outline the basic idea of Competitive                tools and techniques remain inadequate [9, 22]. For example,
                Debugging and fundamental considerations when setting                     one study concluded that while students knew common de-
                up individual debugging contests. To illustrate how these                 bugging techniques, ł...many students apply the techniques
                maylooklike in practice, we describe three events from the                ineffectively or inconsistently. Testing is patchy and incom-
                perspective of organizers and participants: a pilot contest               plete. Many seem unaware they should test more input than
                withresearchers, a pilot contest for demonstrating advanced               the specification outlines. Only one appeared to methodi-
                tools through Competitive Debugging, and an actual debug-                 cally test boundary conditions. Likewise, the use of print
                ging contest with graduate-level students resulting in the                statements was not systematic.ž [22, p.167] According to
                awarding of the golden łbugž (see Figure 1).                              twosurveys, professional programmers do indeed employ
                   In the following, we first discuss debugging skills and                structured debugging techniques to some extent and make
                their training in some more detail, and discuss related com-              use of printf, assertions, and the step-wise debugger [2, 23].
                puter science competition formats (see Section 2). We then                At the same time, one of these studies combined the sur-
                describe the core idea of Competitive Debugging and what                  vey responses with observations of debugging practices and
                needs to be considered when planning a contest (see Sec-                  found that łin general, developers’ theoretical knowledge
                tion 3). Afterwards, we describe the setup, observations, and             1You can find the materials used for the main event at zenodo.org/doi/10.
                interview results from the two pilot contests (see Section 4)             5281/zenodo.7223815 [25].
                                                                                     173
              Competitive Debugging                                                        Onward! ’22, December 8ś10, 2022, Auckland, New Zealand
              andpractical use of specialized debugging features are rela-     to allow teams from all over the world to demonstrate the su-
              tively shallow, just the amount that is seemingly sufficient     periority of their favorite programming language.ž [7] Even
              for their debugging problems.ž [2] With regard to more ad-       while the ICFP event is mostly framed as a fun event, the
              vanced debugging tools such as back-in-time debuggers or         reports on the competition still highlight how contestants
              automatic fault localization techniques, less than half of the   used their favorite language to create successful and elegant
              programmers asked in one survey are aware that they exist,       solutions [7, p.406]. Both events are popular: the ICPC re-
              andevenless have ever used any of these tools [23].              ported attracted 49,935 students in their 2017 edition [12]
                This partial knowledge about debugging techniques and          and the ICFP contests attracted between 95 to 194 teams per
              tools may be the result of a lack of education and training      year between 2018 and 2021.
              ondebugging[2, 22, 23]. The two surveys from above found            Thecompetitions help to promote programming as a skill.
              that there is little formal education on debugging [2, 23]. In   At the same time, participants most likely do not improve
              one survey, almost all participants have received debugging      their programming skills during the contests themselves
              education at college or university, but most only received it    but rather during the preparations for the contest. At some
              ononeoccasion[23]. In both studies, participants reported        universities, students can take courses around Competitive
              thattheymostlylearneddebuggingthroughonlineresources             Programmingorfeaturingsmallprogrammingcompetitions.
              and, if available, mentorships and similar arrangements [2,      Some competitions even have their own preparatory syl-
              23].                                                             labus that participants can use to train, such as the syllabus
                This inadequacy of education and training on debugging         of the International OlympiadinInformatics(IOI),acomputer
              techniques and tools may ultimately lead to more time-           science competition for school students [4]. Next to institu-
              consumingandfrustrating debugging sessions. By promot-           tional courses, a number of books have been published about
              ing debugging as a distinct skill to be honed in addition to     howtotrainforCompetitive Programming contests [11, 14].
              ones programming skills, debugging education may gain               ToourknowledgemostoftheCompetitiveProgramming
              moreattention in higher-level education and training.            events do not feature tasks focused on debugging. Instead,
                                                                               the focus is on creating new programs solving given prob-
              2.2   Related Software DevelopmentCompetitions                   lems, sometimes using some provided libraries. Debugging
              Using competitions to hone and promote skills has a long         is often regarded as a sub-activity in these competitions that
              tradition in various areas of software development, such         is not encouraged explicitly. For instance, the IOI mentions
              as algorithmic problem solving, general software engineer-       debugging in the preparatory curriculum but denotes it as a
              ing, game design, or cybersecurity. Two examples of promi-       necessary skill that will not be prompted explicitly by the
              nent software development competitions are Competitive           tasks.
              Programming and Capture the Flag contests. While many               TheSCOREcontest(Student Contest on Software Engi-
              other competitions exist, we discuss Competitive Program-        neering) [18] is a variation on Competitive Programming
              ming due to its prominence and Capture the Flag due to the       competitions that tries to cover software development more
              similar component of understanding systems and its similar       holistically. In the corresponding contests, teams of students
              real-time nature.                                                work on a selected project and are judged on a variety of
                                                                               aspects such as the degree to which the delivered system
                CompetitiveProgramming. Aprominentcompetitionis                meets the requirements, the quality of the implementation,
              the format of Competitive Programming [4, 15]. In Compet-        or the way the team collaborates internally or with external
              itive Programming events, contestants typically set out to       stakeholders. As such, SCORE contests include debugging
              solve a number of problems requiring participants to write a     as an inherent activity of software development but do not
              program.Dependingontheevent,thecontestantsareranked              judge participants according to it.
              according to the number of problems solved, the time it took
              themtosolvetheproblems, or properties of their solution,            CapturetheFlag. Anotherareaofsoftwaredevelopment
              such as the time it needs to run.                                that features competitions is cybersecurity. In cybersecurity
                Competitive Programming events aim to give contestants         competitions, contestants generally have to install or over-
              anopportunity to test and improve their skills or to show-       comesecurity measures in a variety of contest formats. One
              case techniques, languages, or skills. For instance, the global  popular format is Capture the Flag (CTF) in which partici-
              Competitive Programming competition International Colle-         pants have to plant a token in or retrieve a token from an
              giate Programming Contest (ICPC) advertises the contest as:      unknownnetworkorsystem.Intheattack/defense variation
              łThe contest fosters creativity, teamwork, and innovation        of CTF, teams are set against each other, with each team try-
              in building new software programs, and enables students          ing to secure a vulnerable system before attacking the other
              to test their ability to perform under pressure.ž [12]. The      team’s system. Similar to Competitive Programming, cyber-
              International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP)        security contests can attract hundreds of participants. For
              programming contest states that łthe goal of the contest was     instance, in 2021, 433 teams participated in the DEFCON CTF
                                                                           174
                Onward! ’22, December 8ś10, 2022, Auckland, New Zealand                                     P. Rein, T. Beckmann, L. Geier, T. Mattis, R. Hirschfeld
                qualification round. To disseminate knowledge about tech-                 participants about debugging tools and techniques by pro-
                niques and tools among participants, some contests, such as               viding a public stage for showcasing skills and a gathering
                DEFCONCTForGoogleHackceler8,highlightandpublish                           to discuss them.
                notable approaches or recordings of whole sessions during
                a contest. Next to being popular events in themselves, cy-                3.2    ContestFormat
                bersecurity contests are also used in cybersecurity educa-                Thecoreofourcontest format is defined by three aspects: a
                tion, where students enjoy them as well as train relevant                 previously unknown system, individual work on the same
                skills [16, 29].                                                          task at the same time, and no feedback on the rating of a
                   While in Competitive Programming, contestants create                   patch before the submission.
                newprograms from scratch, contestants of a CTF contest                       Wechosetoletparticipants debug an unknown system to
                worktounderstandandmanipulateanexistingsystem.Both,                       focus the contest on fault localization and patch generation.
                cybersecurity activities and debugging share this focus on                At the beginning of the contest, the organizers demonstrate
                existing systems. At the same time, CTF contests are not de-              howthesoftware system to be debugged is used and give
                signed to explicitly prompt debugging. The inherent nature                an overview of all modules and key classes. Participants
                of debugging tasks and cybersecurity tasks differs in that                cannot investigate the system in advance of the contest. If
                CTFcontestants are looking for previously unknown diver-                  participants were allowed access to the system in advance,
                gent behavior, while in debugging the divergent behavior is               the chances of winning would depend on the time invested
                the starting point.                                                       in program comprehension in advance of the competition.
                                                                                          Also, by reducing the pressure to work on the system before
                3 CompetitiveDebugging                                                    the contest, we keep the time investment for this individual
                     andDebuggingContests                                                 contest low which lowers the bar for people to participate.
                                                                                             In our contest formats, all participants individually work
                WeproposeCompetitive Debugging as a way to promote de-                    onthesametaskatthesametime.Eachtaskconsists of one
                bugging as a skill and to spread knowledge about debugging                failure for which the participants should create and submit a
                techniques and tools. In Competitive Debugging, participants              patch. At the beginning of each task, the organizers present
                find and repair prepared failures of a software system and                the failure. Afterwards, the participants change to their own
                are rated on various scales such as the time they needed to               systems and start working on the task. By working on the
                repair the failure, the correctness of the patch, or the de-              sametask at the same time, participants have a shared expe-
                gree to which the underlying fault was repaired. This basic               rience and can compare their strategies and results among
                concept can be implemented in debugging contests that may                 eachotheraftertheroundfinished.Also,byhavingthesame
                differ in their format depending on their specific goals.                 tasks for all participants the results are directly comparable.
                   Our proposed format of a debugging contest is the re-                     Acentralmechanismofourtasksisthatparticipantshave
                sult of two pilot runs (see Sections 4.1 and 4.2). We ran the             to decide on their own whenthefailureisrepairedandwhen
                resulting format with a group of ten participants, most of                they want to submit their patch. Submitting a wrong patch
                themgraduate-level students (see Section 5). In our contest               results in zero points for the task (for details see Section 3.3).
                format, all participants work on the same task individually               Wedonotprovideready-madeautomatedtests, as we want
                andarerated according to the correctness of their solution                participants to investigate the failure up to the point that
                and their debugging speed. While, in the following sections,              they are confident that they understood the infection chain.
                weproposeonespecific contest format, there are numerous                   Asaresultofthispressuretounderstandthefailure,wehope
                considerations and variations points that may lead to very                to encourage a conscious choice of debugging techniques.
                different formats (see Section 6).
                                                                                          3.3    Scores and Rules
                3.1   Goals                                                               Contestantsareratedaccordingtothecorrectnessandspeed
                Wedesigned our contest format based on a set of explicit                  of repairing the failure. A patch is rated as either correct or
                goals. The primary goal is to advertise debugging as a skill              wrong. If the patch is wrong, the contestant gets zero points
                thatonecanlearnandimprove.Thus,wedesignedtheformat                        forthetask.Whenthepatchiscorrect,thecontestantcanget
                so that the contest attracts participants and engages them                uptosixpoints, depending on how fast they solved the task.
                throughout the contest. For example, we did not strive to                 For every five minutes passed, participants receive on point
                reconstruct realistic debugging scenarios, as they may occur              less, so they start off with six points and lose one every five
                in everyday software development but to create tasks that                 minutes, given that their submitted patch is correct. With
                are feasible within the time-frame and enjoyable. Further, to             this rating system, we aimed to emphasize correctness, as a
                motivate participants to take the time to learn and practice              wrongsolution results in loosing all points for a task, while
                debugging techniques, the event should serve as a goal to                 still rewarding efficient debugging techniques. Using an ab-
                worktowards.Finally, we want to promote exchange among                    solute measure allows for a clear interpretation of scores,
                                                                                     175
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...Competitivedebugging towardcontests promoting debugging as a skill patrick rein tombeckmann leonard geier hasso plattner institute university of potsdam germany hpi uni de tom beckmann toni mattis robert hirschfeld abstract ccsconcepts social and professional topics com is an essential part software development nu puting education its engineering soft merous tools techniques to improve have waremaintenancetools beenproposedinresearchordevelopedintheindustry how keywords competitive competition ever only few those see widespread use contest teaching training rarely primary subject topromotedebuggingasadistinctskill weproposecom acmreferenceformat petitive where participants compete on who can patrickrein leonardgeier tonimattis androbert repair failure the fastest or most comprehensively we towardcontestspromot further propose format for contests aimed at ing in proceedings acm sigplan attracting engaging motivate them international symposium new ideas paradigms reflec their skills our ...

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