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First Complex Systems Digital Campus World E-Conference 2015 pp 203–211Cite as

Software is Not Fragile

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Part of the book series: Springer Proceedings in Complexity ((SPCOM))

Abstract

Trying all simple changes (first order mutations) to executed C, C++ and CUDA source code shows software engineering artefacts are more robust than is often assumed. Of those that compile, up to 89 % run without error. Indeed a few mutants are improvements. Program fitness landscapes are smoother. Analysis of these programs, a parallel nVidia GPGPU kernel, all CUDA samples and the GNU C library shows many lines of code and integer values are repeated and may follow Zipf’s law.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CREST, Department of Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK

    William B. Langdon & Justyna Petke

Authors
  1. William B. Langdon
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  2. Justyna Petke
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to William B. Langdon .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Paris, France

    Paul Bourgine

  2. Univ de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France

    Pierre Collet

  3. ECAM Strasbourg-Europe, Schiltigheim, France

    Pierre Parrend

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© 2017 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Langdon, W.B., Petke, J. (2017). Software is Not Fragile. In: Bourgine, P., Collet, P., Parrend, P. (eds) First Complex Systems Digital Campus World E-Conference 2015. Springer Proceedings in Complexity. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45901-1_24

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