Understanding asynchronous code

JavaScript on the web is difficult to debug due to its asynchronous and dynamic nature. Traditional debuggers are often little help because the language's idioms rely heavily on non-linear control flow via function pointers. The aim of this work is to create a debugging interface that helps users understand complicated control flow in languages like JavaScript. This thesis presents a programming editor extension called Theseus that uses program tracing to provide real-time in-editor feedback so that programmers can answer questions quickly as they write new code and interact with their application. Theseus augments the call graph with semantic edges that allow users to make intuitive leaps through program traces, such as from the start of an asynchronous network request to its response. Participants in lab and classroom studies found Theseus to be a usable replacement for traditional breakpoint and logging tools, though no significant difference was found in their ability to complete programming tasks.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Lieber, Thomas (Thomas Alan)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Robert C. Miller.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/82411

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/82411