Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Our society depends greatly on software systems in many of its critical activities including finance, health, education, telecommunications, aerospace, and many more. These software systems need to be regularly maintained and upgraded to meet the ever increasing user needs and the constant changes in technology. However, maintaining such systems is a challenging and costly activity. In fact, experts agree that this is one of the most difficult tasks in software engineering. The problem is that software engineers must understand different aspects of a software system before they can make changes that preserve reliability and other system attributes. In an ideal environment, design decisions would be based on information kept in up-to-date documentation. However, for a variety of reasons, maintaining sufficiently good documentation has been found to be impractical in many organizations. In this research program, my students and I will investigate new and advanced approaches that can help software engineers understand the complex behaviour of software systems. We will particularly focus on tracing and monitoring techniques. The ultimate objective is to improve the productivity of software engineers as they solve maintenance problems. The outcomes of this research program should have a real impact on the Canadian software industry. Canadian companies and government agencies can focus on delivering new products and enhanced services that add value to the customers instead of spending energy and money on understanding and fixing existing systems. The program will also contribute to the training of highly qualified personnel in an area that has gained an increased attention both nationally and internationally.