A researcher used more than 2,000 em-dashes in his papers, revealing AI-based manipulation in 400+ papers since 1985. Professor Zeller claims he "typed" these dashes into the paper by using "two hyphens" and a "typesetting" system.

Happy New Year! I am thrilled to report that Jacek Śliwerski, Tom Zimmermann, and I won the ACM SIGSOFT 2026 Impact Award 🏆 for "When do changes induce fixes?" (MSR 2005). The paper introduced the popular SZZ algorithm for linking change histories and bug databases: dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...

Problem: Reviewers did not read the paper. Solution: Write a detailed rebuttal and point to all the places in the paper that answer their questions. New problem: Reviewers did not read the rebuttal.

In an IPN vision talk last Monday, I sketched how future AI "super-coders" would learn from their own experiments with software to far surpass current LLM-based AI coders. The talk is now online. Enjoy! * Recording: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBO_... * Slides: andreas-zeller.info/assets/Shoul...

Today at 16:00 CET, I'll give a vision talk "Should AI Coders Experiment More?", paving the way to AI “super coders” that may become way more competent than the most experienced programmers - and also way more competent than any LLM-based coders. Details here: ict-research.nl/2025/11/ipn-...

Time to get serious again. New blog post "Reviewer-Author Collusion Rings and How to Fight Them": andreas-zeller.info/2025/12/07/R...

Bonus material for The LaTeX Korrektor! Some of you asked: "What are these photos and posters in the background?" Here they come, enlarged and with some details. Enjoy! #LaTeX #LaTeXKorrektor In case you missed it, watch all six episodes of the LaTeX Korrektor here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhsM...

Series finale! The LaTeX Korrektor 6/6 - Ten Commandments www.youtube.com/shorts/HAodi... #LaTeX #LaTeXKorrektor Read the LaTeX advice by Diomidis Spinellis (@coolsweng.bsky.social): github.com/dspinellis/l... All six episodes of the LaTeX Korrektor: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhsM...

Why, oh why does your bibliography have all titles in lowercase? WHY? The LaTeX Korrektor 5/6 - Citations: www.youtube.com/shorts/0nk72... #LaTeX #LaTeXKorrektor Missed previous episodes? This playlist has them all: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhsM...

Can one reject papers because of bad typography? The LaTeX Korrektor 4/6 - Math Mode: www.youtube.com/shorts/mc8ro... #LaTeX #LaTeXKorrektor Missed previous episodes? This playlist has them all: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhsM...

This Friday at 11:00 am, I will be giving a talk on "Language-Based Software Testing" at Imperial College in London, covering our latest and greatest in testing systems with highly complex inputs and interactions. Details here: srg.doc.ic.ac.uk/seminars/25-...

The LaTeX Korrektor 3/6 - Vertical Space: www.youtube.com/shorts/n9iLf... #LaTeX #LaTeXKorrektor

The LaTeX Korrektor 2/6 - Dashes: www.youtube.com/shorts/oDDbg...

For your enjoyment: "The LaTeX Korrektor" www.youtube.com/shorts/EhsMd... #LaTeX #LaTeXKorrektor

Happy and honored: I have been selected to become an IEEE Fellow for "contributions to analyzing software and its development process". Thanks a lot to all of you who endorsed and supported me – especially @cispa.de + @saarland-informatics-campus.de, who always encouraged such long-term impact.

Today 11:20 at #ASE2025/#AgenticSE, we have Kuangxiangzi Liu show how to automatically turn natural language protocol specs into #Fandango formal specs, ready for massive automatic test generation: conf.researchr.org/details/ase-...

And another student of mine, Bernd Gruner, presenting continuous data flow-based threat modeling with FlowStrider at @aseconf.bsky.social

When you generate test inputs, how can you tell whether they pass or fail? Our BASHIRI tool learns such oracles with 95% accuracy - demo today at #ASE2025 @aseconf.bsky.social: conf.researchr.org/details/ase-...

Today at ASE 2025 @aseconf.bsky.social: “The fault in our stats”, or how the majority of notebooks fails to check even the most basic statistical assumptions

On my way to Seoul, South Korea, visiting #ASE2025 and then continuing to Shenzhen and Hong Kong. See you soon!

We teach coding. We barely teach testing. We ignore debugging. Prof. @andreaszeller.bsky.social joins Clare Sudbery on the #GOTOpodcast to discuss why debugging is the missing piece in programming education — and why it matters more than ever in the age of AI. 🎧 gotopia.tech/podcast

At #InnoSoftDays 2025 in Sevilla today, presenting novel ways for language- and AI-based software testing with #Fandango

Today I turn 60 – and what a journey this has been! Grateful for family, friends, students, colleagues, and a scientific community that keeps me inspired. The big party? You’ll have to wait four years, when I hit my (binary) 1,000,000th birthday. 😉

On my way to ACM CCS 2025 in Taipei (via Istanbul). Meet me there!

Why don't we let ChatGPT run the country? chatgpt.com/share/68c91b...

Did you know there are tools you can use for automated debugging, and you can build them yourself? Have you come across @andreaszeller.bsky.social and his amazing creation The Debugging Book, which is so much more than just a book? Did you know you can access The Debugging Book for free?

25 years of delta debugging! On this day in 2000, I presented “Simplifying Failure-Inducing Inputs” at ISSTA - now one of the most influential works in the 50-year history of Transactions on Software Engineering. Read all about its genesis and impact at doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/TSE....

Proud and honored to have German Chancellor Friedrich Merz visit us to be shown our latest and greatest research! This is a clear signal of how relevant @cispa.de has become - and we’re still growing and expanding.

Always use these six sentences in your paper rebuttal

How can you teach a machine how a program behaves? In our newest ACM TOSEM paper, we train machine learners from input/output pairs of thousands of program runs, producing models that _predict inputs for given desired outputs_. This got us a 150k€ ERC grant. Read the paper at doi.org/10.1145/3748...

🛠️ Debugging with AI? LLMs like ChatGPT struggle with debugging—but there’s still potential. CISPA’s @andreaszeller.bsky.social explains how AI can help and what’s next in the DLF podcast Computer und Kommunikation. 🎧 Listen here: www.deutschlandfunk.de/fehlersuche-... 
#AI #Debugging #Cybersecurity

I got an ERC Proof of Concept grant from @erc.europa.eu! In the PROSA project, we train _program-specific models_ from myriads of synthesized executions, obtaining models that can predict how the software behaves and how we can trigger specific behavior: cispa.de/en/erc-proof... #ERCPoC

Since its release two weeks ago, our #Fandango test generator has been downloaded and installed more than 25,000 times! (Hint: It's "pip install fandango-fuzzer") Check it out here: fandango-fuzzer.github.io

How reliable are citation metrics? According to Google Scholar, our 2025 paper "A Retrospective on Mining Version Histories to Guide Software Changes" (ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/doc...) has had its first citation in 1974 – 50 years BEFORE publication: scholar.google.com/scholar?oi=b...

🐛 "Half of dev time is debugging, yet we barely teach it" - @andreaszeller.bsky.social tells @claresudbery.bsky.social ✅ Debugging skills critically undertaught ✅ Automated tools unknown to students

Since many of you asked: One of the wonders of @cispa.de is that it has professionals for everything - be it photography, slide design, pitch talk training, empirical study design, proposal writing - and, of course, producing fun project videos :-)

Since many of you asked: One of the wonders of @cispa.de is that it has professionals for everything - be it photography, slide design, pitch talk training, empirical study design, proposal writing, and more. This video was produced by our fabulous in-house PR team, and clearly made with love :-)

Introducing #Fandango 💃 — a powerful bio-inspired test generator designed to supercharge your software testing. Fandango gives you unprecedented control over test inputs, integrating grammars, constraints, and Python. Now with protocol testing! ➡️ Check out Fandango at fandango-fuzzer.github.io

Today at #FSE2025: * 14:40 @ Cosmos 3C “Expressing and Checking Statistical Assumptions”: 84% of surveyed notebooks violate assumptions: conf.researchr.org/details/fse-... OR * 14:50 at Pirsenteret “jAST: Analyzing and Modifying Java ASTs with Python”: conf.researchr.org/details/fse-...

My #Fandango team at #FSE2025 / #ISSTA2025: Alexi Turcotte, Marius Smytzek, me, Pepe Zamudio, and Laura Plein. What is #Fandango? Watch this space on Thursday for our big 1.0 release announcement and/or attend Pepe‘s presentation on Friday 16:00!

Today at #FSE2025: Check out * 14:20 @ Cosmos 3C: Bernd‘s journal-first work on Information Flow Fuzzing: conf.researchr.org/details/fse-... and * 15:12 @ Vega: Laura‘s Student Research Competion talk on Predicting Software Changes from Desired Behavior Changes: conf.researchr.org/details/fse-...

For the first time in 25 years, I put a sticker on my laptop

🌍 From June 4-6, 2025, we hosted a group of international luminaries in cybersecurity and trustworthy artificial intelligence in Saarbrücken. Result of our evaluation: “Outstanding” - world leader in all categories! cispa.de/en/evaluation

And here's my interview on fuzzing with video and English subtitles: www.youtube.com/watch?v=u84x...

Wie kann ich Software-Tests automatisch erzeugen und Schwachstellen finden? @richardseidl.bsky.social hat mich zum Thema "Fuzzing" interviewt und von mir einiges über die neuesten Ansätze zum automatischen Testen erfahren.

Cutting-edge AI models ‘collapse’ in face of complex problems, Apple study finds

Knowing the input language of a software system greatly facilitates its (automated) testing. In our new GDBMiner work, we use the GNU debugger (GDB) to extract precise input grammars from any recursive descent parser that can be traced via GDB: doi.org/10.4230/LITE...

🎉 HUGE NEWS! 🎉 #ASE2025 has received a record-breaking 1,190 submissions – the most EVER for a single-cycle top SE conference! 🤯 Massive thanks to all authors who submitted. Looking forward to what promises to be an unforgettable conference with an incredible program 🔥!

Occasionally, I get a reviewer complaining, “You don’t compare against any other approach. So how can we know you’re better?” So I found a simple way to still add the "bold number column" that apparently everybody wants these days.

We’re thrilled for @andreaszeller.bsky.social who received the ACM SIGSOFT Influential Educator Award. Andreas was honored “for significant contributions and important innovations in automated software engineering education.” cispa.de/en/zeller-in... Credits: Jordan Samhi