Article

Free access

Response to undesired events in software systems

Authors:

D. L. Parnas,

H. WürgesAuthors Info & Claims

ICSE '76: Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on Software engineering

Pages 437 - 446

Published: 13 October 1976 Publication History

PDF eReader

Abstract

This paper discusses an approach to handling run-time errors in software systems. It is often assumed that in programs which can be proven correct, errors will not be a problem. This paper is predicted on the assumption that, even with correct programs, undesired events at run-time will continue to be a problem. Routines to respond to these undesired events (UEs) must be provided in reliable systems.

This paper describes a program organization which aims at satisfying the following criteria:

(1) UE response routines are written by each programmer in terms of the abstract machine which he uses for his normal case code. UEs are reported in those terms. He is never forced to use information about the implementation of other modules in the system.

(2) Programs can be written so that the code for UE detection, UE correction, and normal case, are lexically separate and can be modified independently.

(3) The system can evolve from an initial version that does little recovery to one which uses sophisticated recovery techniques without a change in the structure of the system.

(4) Even with unsophisticated recovery procedures, the task of locating the module containing a bug discovered at run-time does not require internal knowledge of many modules.

(5) Costs incurred because of the recovery techniques are low as no UE occurs.

References

[1]

Parnas, D.L., "A Technique for Software Modules Specification With Examples", CACM, May 1972.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[2]

Parnas, D.L., "On the Criteria for Decomposing Systems into Modules", Carnegie-Mellon University Technical Report, 1971, CACM vol.15,12 (Dec. 1972).

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[3]

Dijkstra, E.W., "Notes on Structured Programming", T.H.E., Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

Google Scholar

[4]

Parnas, D.L., "Information Distribution Aspects of Design Methodology", Proc. of IFIP Congress 71, 1971.

Google Scholar

[5]

Wirth, N., "Programming by Stepwise Refinement", CACM vol.14,4 (April 1971).

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[6]

Parnas, D.L., "Some Conclusions from an Experiment in Software Engineering Techniques", Carnegie-Mellon University Technical Report, Proc. FJCC 1972, AFIPS Press.

Google Scholar

[7]

Jones, A., Private Communication

Google Scholar

[8]

Parnas, D.L., "Some Hypotheses About the "Uses" Hierarchy for Operating Systems", Forschungsbericht BS I 76/1, Technische Hochschule Darmstadt (Germany), March 76.

Google Scholar

[9]

Parnas, D.L., "On a Buzzword: Hierarchical Structure", Proc. of IFIP Congress 74, 1974, North-Holland Publ. Co.

Google Scholar

[10]

Parnas, D.L., "On the Design and Development of Program Families", Forschungbericht BS I 75/2, Technische Hochschule Darmstadt (Germany), IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, March 1976.

Google Scholar

[11]

Randell, B., "System Structure for Software Fault Tolerance", Proc. of 1975 Int. Conf. on Reliable Software, Los Angeles CA, April 1975.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[12]

Kaiser, C., Krakowiak, S., "An Analysis of Some Rune-Time Errors in an Operating System", Colloques IRIA, Rocquencourt, April 23-25, 1974.

Google Scholar

Cited By

View all

(2018)Do android developers neglect error handling? a maintenance-Centric study on the relationship between android abstractions and uncaught exceptionsJournal of Systems and Software10.1016/j.jss.2017.10.032136:C(1-18)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.jss.2017.10.032
Oliveira JCacho NBorges DSilva TCastor F(2016)An Exploratory Study of Exception Handling Behavior in Evolving Android and Java ApplicationsProceedings of the XXX Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering10.1145/2973839.2973843(23-32)Online publication date: 19-Sep-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2973839.2973843
Cacho NCésar TFilipe TSoares ECassio ASouza RGarcia IBarbosa EGarcia AJalote PBriand LHoek A(2014)Trading robustness for maintainability: an empirical study of evolving c# programsProceedings of the 36th International Conference on Software Engineering10.1145/2568225.2568308(584-595)Online publication date: 31-May-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2568225.2568308
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Response to undesired events in software systems
1. General and reference
  1. Cross-computing tools and techniques
    1. Reliability
2. Software and its engineering

Recommendations

ASSURE: automatic software self-healing using rescue points
ASPLOS XIV: Proceedings of the 14th international conference on Architectural support for programming languages and operating systems

Software failures in server applications are a significant problem for preserving system availability. We present ASSURE, a system that introduces rescue points that recover software from unknown faults while maintaining both system integrity and ...
Towards a Theory of Forward Error Recovery
Annals of discrete mathematics, 24

When the state of a program in execution is accidentally altered, a recovery action may be needed before the execution can proceed on. Two approaches exist for the design of recovery actions: backward recovery consists of retrieving a previously saved ...
ASSURE: automatic software self-healing using rescue points
ASPLOS 2009

Software failures in server applications are a significant problem for preserving system availability. We present ASSURE, a system that introduces rescue points that recover software from unknown faults while maintaining both system integrity and ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

ICSE '76: Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on Software engineering

October 1976

639 pages

Publisher

IEEE Computer Society Press

Washington, DC, United States

Publication History

Published: 13 October 1976

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Article

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 276 of 1,856 submissions, 15%

Upcoming Conference

ICSE 2025

2025 IEEE/ACM 46th International Conference on Software Engineering

April 26 - May 3, 2025

Ottawa , ON , Canada

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

26
Total Citations
View Citations
674
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)76
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)9

Reflects downloads up to 02 Oct 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all

(2018)Do android developers neglect error handling? a maintenance-Centric study on the relationship between android abstractions and uncaught exceptionsJournal of Systems and Software10.1016/j.jss.2017.10.032136:C(1-18)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.jss.2017.10.032
Oliveira JCacho NBorges DSilva TCastor F(2016)An Exploratory Study of Exception Handling Behavior in Evolving Android and Java ApplicationsProceedings of the XXX Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering10.1145/2973839.2973843(23-32)Online publication date: 19-Sep-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2973839.2973843
Cacho NCésar TFilipe TSoares ECassio ASouza RGarcia IBarbosa EGarcia AJalote PBriand LHoek A(2014)Trading robustness for maintainability: an empirical study of evolving c# programsProceedings of the 36th International Conference on Software Engineering10.1145/2568225.2568308(584-595)Online publication date: 31-May-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2568225.2568308
Parnas D(2010)From Requirements to ArchitectureProceedings of the 2010 conference on New Trends in Software Methodologies, Tools and Techniques: Proceedings of the 9th SoMeT_1010.5555/1860875.1860878(3-36)Online publication date: 6-Aug-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1860875.1860878
Brito PDe Lemos RRubira CMartins E(2009)Architecting fault tolerance with exception handlingJournal of Computer Science and Technology10.1007/s11390-009-9219-224:2(212-237)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2009
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s11390-009-9219-2
Platon ESabouret NHoniden S(2008)An architecture for exception management in multiagent systemsInternational Journal of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering10.1504/IJAOSE.2008.0194202:3(267-289)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1504/IJAOSE.2008.019420
Bertoncello IDias MBrito PRubira C(2008)Explicit exception handling variability in component-based product line architecturesProceedings of the 4th international workshop on Exception handling10.1145/1454268.1454275(47-54)Online publication date: 14-Nov-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1454268.1454275
Cacho NFilho FGarcia AFigueiredo ED'Hondt T(2008)EJFlowProceedings of the 7th international conference on Aspect-oriented software development10.1145/1353482.1353492(72-83)Online publication date: 31-Mar-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1353482.1353492
Brito PDe Lemos RMartins ERubira C(2007)Architecture-centric fault tolerance with exception handlingProceedings of the Third Latin-American conference on Dependable Computing10.5555/2396065.2396075(75-94)Online publication date: 26-Sep-2007
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/2396065.2396075
Filho FGarcia ARubira C(2007)Error handling as an aspectProceedings of the 2nd workshop on Best practices in applying aspect-oriented software development10.1145/1229485.1229486(1-es)Online publication date: 12-Mar-2007
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1229485.1229486
Show More Cited By

View Options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

Get Access

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Cited By

Index Terms

Recommendations

ASSURE: automatic software self-healing using rescue points

Towards a Theory of Forward Error Recovery

ASSURE: automatic software self-healing using rescue points