Challenges of Debugging Software Errors for Automatic Program Repair
This paper investigates the problem of software errors concentrating on the newborn research area of automatic program repair. It aims at providing a roadmap toward the research in automatic software debugging in general, and at laying bare the status quo of automatic program repair, in particular. The authors highlight the issues in software development lifecycle that give rise to introduce errors. Then, the authors elucidate which issues can be resolved and which ones not. The authors review the impediments that preclude resolving every error and releasing correct software. The authors give the strategies to eliminate software errors and the concomitant limitations to these strategies. Then, the authors shift the focus on the problem of automatic program repair which is an integral part for full automatic software debugging. Considering the status quo, the paper elaborates on some of the significant challenges afflicting this avenue of research.