Visualizing interactive and shared debugging sessions

Debugging sessions require a methodical process of finding causes and reducing the number of software problems. During such sessions, developers run a software project, traversing method invocations, setting breakpoints, stopping or restarting executions. In these sessions, developers explore different parts of the code and create knowledge about them. When debugging sessions are over, it is likely that such knowledge is lost, and developers cannot use it in other sessions or sharing it with collaborators. We have developed Swarm Debugging, a new approach for visualizing and sharing information obtained during debugging sessions, providing interactive and real-time visualization techniques, and several searching tools. Through usage scenarios, we demonstrate that it can aid developers to decrease the required time for deciding where to toggle a break-point and locate bug causes. We show how Swarm Debugging offers more useful support for many typical development tasks than a traditional debugger tool.