1997/08/01 by T. Kunz, Thomas Kunz · 43 citations
Computer Science · #Computer science #Data mining #Debugger #Debugging #Distributed computing #Distributed systems and fault tolerance #Event (particle physics) #Executable #Human–computer interaction #Independence (probability theory) #Operating system #Parallel Computing and Optimization Techniques #Programming language #Set (abstract data type) #Software System Performance and Reliability #Visualization
paper · doi:10.1093/comjnl/40.8.499
published in The Computer Journal 40(8), 499-512 (Oxford University Press)
openalex publication_date 1997/08/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Designing and implementing a visual debugger for distributed programs is a significant challenge. Distributed applications are often large and frequently exhibit a high degree of complexity. Consequently, a debugger must address problems of complexity and scale in at least two ways. First, appropriate user interfaces should allow a user to manage the vast amount of information typically obtained from distributed executions. Second, the tool itself, in handling this information, should be implemented efficiently, providing a user with reasonable response times for interactive use. Our research efforts, concentrating on these problems, have led to the development of Poet, a tool for the collection and presentation of event-based traces of distributed executions. Poet makes as few assumptions as possible about characteristics that must be possessed by all target environments. Information describing each target environment is placed in configuration files, allowing a single set of Poet executables to be used for all target environments. Comparing Poet's performance to XPVM, the standard visualization tool for PVM executions, reveals that this target-system independence does not impose a performance penalty.