InfoProbe-a utility for animation of IC* programs

InfoProbe is an observation and debugging tool designed for the IC* parallel programming environment. InfoProbe borrows a paradigm from hardware debugging, the use of observation tools such as gauges, probes, and meters, and reapplies it in the software environment to provide a similar set of audiovisual gauges for watching program behavior. A description is given of the design of InfoProbe, the experiences of its users, and the lessons learned. InfoProbe has shown strong initial success in debugging several complicated systems, finding bugs that are often hard to detect with other debugging paradigms