Sunday, June 26, 2016

Marlin & Dory way of 'Finding Bugs'

On our return after watching ‘Finding Dory’, my son asked, “Dad, if you were to find Dory would you be able to do that”? I said, “Ofcourse”! Next, came HOW? I reminded him that my job is to Find Bugs and so I know the tricks of the game already. That made him super excited and wanting to know more about it. Given that this time the reference was picked by him, I decided to continue the same to explain him further.

In the movie, Marlin and Nemo were finding Dory inside the Marine Life Institute (MLI), likewise, we find bugs inside the design called as System on Chip (SoC). The SoC has a lot of similarity to MLI in the sense that it is big and complex. As MLI had different sections, our SoC has different blocks where Dory (Bug) can be found. Also it is not only the sections but the inter-connections that are equally important. When we look for Dory (Bug) inside these blocks we call it IP verification and when our focus is on the inter-connections we call it Integration or SoC Verification.

Image Source : http://www.socwall.com/desktop-wallpaper/7462/dory-and-marlin-by-ryone/

We start off our quest using the Marlin way i.e. “Assess the situation, evaluate, and plan it out”. We call it the Directed Verification approach wherein we understand the design, prepare a plan on where and how we would look around for Dory (Bug) and then execute accordingly. During this process we also keep asking (reviews) around (designers & peers) to let us know if we are missing out on anything. So if Dory is somewhere around, there is a chance we may sight her. But since Dory doesn’t think much before acting, that makes her unpredictable. There is always a possibility that we may not find her as per our plan.

My son’s eyeballs zoomed…. THEN?

Then we also do what Marlin & Nemo did i.e. follow “What would Dory do”? My son jumped, "She wouldn’t think twice and be random". Yes! We pick the Dory way and we call it Random Verification. We search randomly everywhere in an unplanned sequence and guess what? The chances that we would find Dory (Bug) increase. To make it more effective, we define weights and constraints to the randomness so as to improve our luck of finding her further. The approach now becomes Constrained Random Verification (CRV).  While following this random pattern we also take a note (coverage) of where all we have visited to avoid repeating same place again and save time. Now we can find her faster. Tracking coverage on top of CRV is called Coverage Driven Verification (CDV). So if we missed finding Dory (Bug) using the Marlin way (Directed verification) we still have an option to find her the Dory way (CRV).

That settled my son for a while till he pointed again saying, “Dad, maybe you should seek help from Bailey, the beluga whale who can find Dory faster than anyone using echo location”. I smirked and told him that we have our Bailey too and we call it Formal Verification. But then, Bailey was dependent on the whale voice between Dory & Destiny, the whale shark without which he couldn’t be of much help. Similarly, in Formal we are dependent on the assertions that connect the tool to the bug in the design. The effectiveness of this approach is purely dependent on the quality of voice (assertions) and the connect (covering all parts of design) between Dory & Destiny. But yes, if that is in place, it is really fast & effective.

Now convinced that his dad would be able to find Dory, my son asked, “So once you have found Dory, what do you do next”?

I laughed and told that we don’t have to find only 1 Dory (Bug). There are many of them and the address and architecture of the institute (new SoC) also keeps changing. So we just keep Finding Dory (Bug)!!!

Disclaimer: "The postings on this blog are my own and not necessarily reflects the views of Aricent"

10 comments:

  1. Amazing analogy n well articulated explanation. Albert Einstein quotes "If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself ?"

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  2. Yeah...very well said and easy to explain what exactly we do to people who are not aware of our work area.

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  3. Great idea, I think i would like to see something complicated.

    With Regards
    Katya

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  4. Nicely articulated ... But Formal verification part is little doubtful and I think analogy is not very relevant...

    Waiting for more staffs like this

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  5. I am so delighted to be here and to read this perfect post. Thanks for share this with us.

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  6. Wow, great blog content and thank u for sharing.

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  7. Astonishing relationship n very much enunciated clarification. Albert Einstein cites "On the off chance that you can't disclose it to a six year old, you don't comprehend it yourself ?"

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  8. it change my review over bugs such a inspirational post thank you for your blog

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  9. Amazing analogy n well articulated explanation. Albert Einstein quotes "If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself ?

    ReplyDelete