Re: random debugging, What should I prepare for a PL PhD program

From	gah4 <gah4@u.washington.edu>
Newsgroups	comp.compilers
Subject	Re: random debugging, What should I prepare for a PL PhD program
Date	2022-10-21 16:56 -0700
Organization	Compilers Central
Message-ID	<22-10-040@comp.compilers> (permalink)
References	<22-10-029@comp.compilers> <22-10-031@comp.compilers> <22-10-035@comp.compilers> <22-10-036@comp.compilers> <22-10-039@comp.compilers>

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On Friday, October 21, 2022 at 4:46:28 PM UTC-7, Thomas Koenig wrote:

(snip)

> Traditionally, internal compiler errors on invalid code have been
> considered relatively easy. But you may always find a hard one...

Reminds me of the story (I never saw anyone do it) that in the early days
of compilers, they would feed cards from the card recycle bin to them.

That is, as you note, a test of (most likely) invalid code.

But now that we don't have card recycle bins, where do you get a good
selection of invalid code to test them with?
[I've seen reports where people fed strings of random bytes into various
kinds of programs to see what happened.   Almost invariably they crashed.
On the other hand, I recall a story from the 1960s in which someone reported
that an IBM Fortran compiler failed on a source card that contained an
obscure hard to punch invalid special character which they happened to use
for an internal delimiter.  The quite reasonable reply was "Don't do that."
-John]

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What should I prepare for a PL PhD program Tianbo Hao <tianboh@alumni.cmu.edu> - 2022-10-18 14:52 +0800
  RE: What should I prepare for a PL PhD program "Nuno Lopes" <nuno.lopes@tecnico.ulisboa.pt> - 2022-10-19 09:30 +0100
    Re: What should I prepare for a PL PhD program Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@netscape.net> - 2022-10-20 11:30 +0200
      Re: What should I prepare for a PL PhD program Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> - 2022-10-21 03:37 +0000
        Re: What should I prepare for a PL PhD program Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2022-10-21 21:32 +0000
          Re: random debugging, What should I prepare for a PL PhD program gah4 <gah4@u.washington.edu> - 2022-10-21 16:56 -0700
            Re: random debugging, What should I prepare for a PL PhD program Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2022-10-22 08:49 +0000
              Re: random debugging, What should I prepare for a PL PhD program Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@netscape.net> - 2022-10-23 01:27 +0200
                Re: random debugging, What should I prepare for a PL PhD program gah4 <gah4@u.washington.edu> - 2022-10-23 00:00 -0700
                Re: random debugging, What should I prepare for a PL PhD program Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2022-10-23 09:28 +0000
  Re: What should I prepare for a PL PhD program gah4 <gah4@u.washington.edu> - 2022-10-19 01:33 -0700
  Re: What should I prepare for a PL PhD program anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2022-10-20 07:33 +0000

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