I am a research scientist at Inria in RMoD, an Inria team member of the CRISTtAL laboratory (UMR CNRS 9189).
Keywords: Debugging, Live Debugging, Object-Centric Debugging, Time-travel Debugging, Scriptable Debuggers, Dynamic Langages, Reflection, Software Adaptation, Object-Oriented Systems, Software Engineering.

Research

I build and study tools to help developers understand and fix bugs in their programs. To that end, first I try to identify the best techniques applicable to the investigation of hard bugs. Second, I try to identify and to study the properties that programming languages and their infrastructures should expose to support those debugging techniques. For some problems, especially real world problems, these techniques do not exist and I must define them. I build tools to prove the feasibility of these techniques and their applicability to the target problem. I then empirically evaluate them to study and to understand their impact on the debugging activity. Finally, I transfer the most advanced and promising tools to the open-source and industry worlds.

Projects

• ANR JCJC OCRE: Object-Centric Debugging Reloaded (2022 - 2026).
  Lowering the cost of debugging with the first generation of object-centric debuggers.
  Funding: 173 000 euros.

Awards

• 1st prize Technology Innovation Award, European Smalltalk User Group conference 2022.
  Time-Traveling Queries for Faster Debugging And Program Comprehension.
  Maximilian Willembrinck, Steven Costiou, Anne Etien, Stéphane Ducasse
• Best poster award, journées nationales du GDR-GPL 2022.
  Time-Traveling Queries for Faster Debugging and Program Comprehension.
  Maximilian Willembrinck, Steven Costiou, Anne Etien, Stéphane Ducasse

Students

PhD students

• Valentin Bourcier: Building the first generation of object-centric debuggers. Funding: ANR OCRE. Supervisor (100%), 2022 - 2025.
• Maximilian Willembrinck: Queryable time-traveling debuggers. Funding: Inria Lille. Advisor 50% (supervisor: Pr. Anne Etien)), 2020 - 2023.
• Thomas Dupriez: New Generation Debuggers. Funding: ENS Paris Saclay. Co-advisor (50% on 2 years) on scriptable debuggers (supervisor: Stéphane Ducasse), 2018 - 2020.

Master 2

• Adrien Vanègue (research). 2 years apprenticeship. University of Lille. 2022, 24 months.
• Daniel Camacho (research). Universidad Católica Boliviana “San Pablo”. 2022, 6 months.
• Loïc Bontemps (research). University of Lille. 2022, 6 months.
• Louise Plantec (research). IMT Atlantique. 2018, 6 months.
• Elouan Vaillant (research). IMT Atlantique. 2018, 6 months.
• Khitam Souleiman (industry). ISEN Brest. 2014, 6 months.

Master 1

• Nordine Feddal (research). Université de Lille. 2021, 1 months.
• Clotilde Toullec (research). Université de Bretagne Occidentale. 2018, 4 months.
• Amandine Trollet (industry). ENIB. 2015, 4 months.
• Valentin Bodereau (industry). ENIB. 2014, 4 months.
• Florent Letraon (industry). Université de Bretagne Occidentale. 2013, 3 months.

Bachelor

• Adrien Vanègue (research). University of Lille. 2022, 5 months.

Working groups

• Leader of the GT Debugging working group of the CNRS GDR GPL. (2020 - ...). debugging.inria.fr.
• Co-leader of the Inria Northern Europe Associated Team : Advanced debugging (2020 - 2022). Inria funding for associated team in northern Europe with Prof. Elisa Gonzales Boix from Virje Universiteit Brussels..

Collaborations

• Inria Rennes and University of Nantes (2021 - ...). Collaboration with Pr. Benoit Combemale (Inria Rennes) and Pr. Erwan Bousse (University of Nantes) from the GEMOC project, on the automatic generation of queries on program traces to support new back-in-time debugging features.
• University of Chicoutimi (UCAQ) and Concordia University, Québec (2020 - ...). Collaboration with Pr. Fabio Petrillo (UCAQ) on the empirical evaluation of variable breakpoints.
• University of Zurich, Suisse (2020 - ...). Collaboration with Pr. Alberto Bacchelli on the empirical evaluation of object-centric debugging operators.
• Thales DMS, Brest (2017 - ...). Industrial R&D collaboration with Dr. Éric Le Pors, lead prototyping artitect at Thales DMS (Brest). We work on unanticipated object-centric debugging of HMI prototypes.
• SOFT laboratory, Vrije Universitat Brussels, Belgique (2017 - 2019). Collaboration with Pr. Elisa Gonzales Boix and Matteo Marra (PhD candidate) : remote debugging for cyber-physical systems.
• Inria, Lille (2017 - 2018). Collaboration with Dr. Marcus Denker (CRIStAL): object-centric reflection for Pharo..
• Diazol/Libre-Informatique, Brest (2016 - 2018). Industrial collaboration with two French companies, Diazol and Libre-Informatique, on dynamic prototyping of industrial applications.

Service

Program commitees

• Early Research Achievement (ERA) track of the 30th IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering: SANER 2023.
• Prix de thèse du GDR-GPL 2021: CNRS 2022.
  https://gdr-gpl.cnrs.fr/Actions/PrixDeTheseGPL.
• International Conference on Software Technologies: ICSOFT 2022.
  https://icsoft.scitevents.org/.
• Appel à défis 2020 du GDR GPL: CNRS 2020.
  http://gdr-gpl.cnrs.fr/node/384.
• International Workshop on Smalltalk Technologies: IWST 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022.
  https://esug.github.io/2020-Conference/cfpIWST2020.html.

Reviewer

• International Conference on Software Engineering: ICSE (external reviewer) 2021.
  https://conf.researchr.org/committee/icse-2021/icse-2021-papers-additional-reviewers.
• International Conference on Program Comprehension: ICPC (external reviewer) 2020.
  https://dl.acm.org/action/showFmPdf?doi=10.1145%2F3387904.
• International Conference on Software and Systems Reuse: ICSR 2020.
  https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-64694-3#toc.
• International Workshop on Smalltalk Technologies: IWST 2017.
  https://esug.github.io/2017-Conference/cfpIWST2017.html.

Session chair

• Conference session chair: Pharo Days 2022.
  https://days.pharo.org/.
• Debugging sessions des journées du GDR GPL: 2021, 2022.
  https://gdr-gpl.cnrs.fr/JourneesNationales.
• Debugging session: IWST 2019.

Local organisation committee

• Journées nationales 2021 du GDR-GPL: GDR GPL 2021.
  https://gdr-gpl.cnrs.fr/JourneesNationales.
• 24th International Conference on Real-Time Networks and Systems: RTNS 2016.
  http://rtns16.univ-brest.fr/#page=committees.

Student volunteer

• European Smalltalk User Group: ESUG 2009, 2016, 2017.