NaNofuzz: A Fuzzer & User Interface That Can Help Programmers Find Bugs Earlier In Development

What is it about?

Fuzzers are often used at the end of the software development process because such tools have long runtimes and are difficult to setup and use. Could fuzzers help software engineers find bugs earlier in the development process if they were easier to use? We built NaNofuzz, which incorporates a random-guided fuzzer into a Visual Studio Code extension and uses a novel "tabs and grids" user interface to organize tests and test results. In a randomized controlled trial with a popular industrial testing tool, called Jest, NaNofuzz users found more bugs in less time while Jest users struggled to organize their tests and to manually write enough tests to thoroughly test the program and find bugs.

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Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash

Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This paper is important because it provides early evidence that automatic test generators, like fuzzers, might help software engineers earlier in the development process if such tools are carefully designed with the user's needs in mind. We propose and evaluate a first iteration of a "tabs and grids" user interface for organizing and displaying test results. We further build upon this novel testing user interface in our subsequent TestLoop and TerzoN works.