Bug-Free

Bug Life

Anyone who has spent any amount of time behind a keyboard with the aim of creating a program of any complexity has been faced with the frustration of dealing with compilation errors or unexpected results. It’s par for the course. Part of one’s education in programming is learning how to work through the seemingly endless frustration that can spawn from chasing down an error caused by something as innocuous as a missing character.

Syntax Checking

Typical IDE built-in syntax checker. Find out more…

Most integrated developing environments (IDEs) contain functionality similar to a word processor’s spell check, hints and reminders that draw programmers’ eyes to errors that will lead to compilation issues. This has been a gift from the gods, especially for any of us old enough to remember the time before, and the eye-strain that accompanied staring at a computer screen for hours looking for the missing parenthesis.

A Deeper Understanding

What if your spellchecker could do more? What if it could not only tell you what’s been misspelled, but rather, tell you what you were trying to say? A system called Pasket can potentially offer that convenience. Going beyond simple syntax errors, it could identify potentially unintentional loops, awkwardly designed statements, or simply eliminate unnecessary inefficient code, further streamlining run times.

All the Satisfaction Minus the Headache

Building things is satisfying. Legos have long capitalized on the human predilection to create and maintain a healthy revenue stream despite their offensive pricing. Writing programs provides a similar feeling of accomplishment, bolstered by having it up and running in a reasonable amount of time after its been written. Frequently, debugging can take longer than the program’s creation and for a multitude of reasons. Having a system capable of using expected output to identify flaws in the code could save programmers more than a little time and more than a few bouts of unbridled rage.