Software today is inherently large and complex, in fact more so than ever

before. Consequently, debugging when failure is observed is also

becoming much more difficult and time-consuming. Manual debugging is

quickly losing its viability as a practical option, and yet at the same time,

techniques that aim for automatic fault localization are still not accurately

and consistently able to pinpoint the locations of faults to a desired degree.

Distinguishing executions that fail due to different causative faults,

reliably recording and replaying failed executions, and fixing bugs

without introducing new faults are but some of the debugging-related

problems faced by developers today. Furthermore, formal verification

techniques suffer from complexity and scalability issues, static techniques

can often be imprecise, and the heavy performance overhead of dynamic

techniques can prohibit their application. While studies are being

conducted to resolve these problems, researchers often make unrealistic

assumptions, and subject software may not be representative of large

scale industrial applications. Such concerns can induce in practitioners a

lack of faith with regard to what research proposals can offer and deliver.

This workshop brings to light the latest challenges and advances in

research topics associated with program debugging, with a special

emphasis on methodology, techniques, and environment. Also accepted

are experience reports that describe industrial and/or empirical studies

related to these three aspects. IWPD aims to provide a forum and serve as

a platform for researchers and practitioners to exchange ideas, present

new advancements, and identify further challenges in the context of

program debugging.

Topics of Interest

The workshop welcomes submissions that cover, but are not limited

to, the following topics:

 Automation of program debugging

 Challenges and emerging techniques in program debugging for

large scale real-life applications

 Static and dynamic analyses for software fault localization and

bug-fixing

 Apply debugging to multi-core and multi-threaded programs

 Impacts of program languages and environments on debugging

 Impact of program debugging and test case prioritization on

regression testing

 Software risk analysis and fault proneness prediction

 Software testing, verification, and validation for debugging

 Online monitoring and record/replay for program debugging

 Reducing the cost of program debugging

 Empirical studies and benchmarking

 Experience reports and industrial best practices

 Tool support

 Transitioning from research to practice

 Integrating debugging with other software development activities

 Approaches to teaching program debugging