iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 15/09/2026

Nice! It echoes what we are working ln with @jmaquoi.bsky.social Some changes in the code base (not necessarily code) have strange/huge/smaller than expected impact on energy consumption

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Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 10/09/2026

Still around and well alive. 😆

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Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 10/09/2026

The start of the new academic year, so resetting courses to their default configuration (emptying groups, forums, assignments, ...).

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Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 10/09/2026

Time to hit that Reset button on Moodle!

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Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 09/09/2026

Not even a week between the end of the previous academic year and the start of the new one. I am academically exhausted. 😩

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Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 09/09/2026

Can't wait for these deliberation sessions to be over. I have seen some awful UI in the different systems used in different universities, but the height of bad taste is the one using a gift (🎁) as an icon to mark a student's financial eligibility extension.

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Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 08/09/2026

Keeping an empty inbox is getting harder. Not because there are more emails, but because constant context switching is tiring. Rules that sort emails into folders help a bit, but there is still too much switching within each folder... and with tiredness comes procrastination. 😅

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Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 07/09/2026

Software product lines… no, variability intensive systems… no, Highly configurable systems never die, they keep respawning with a different name… Saw a workshop on configuration languages at #ASE26

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Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 07/09/2026

Today, I have the pleasure to be part of the PhD jury of Pierre Martou. Pierre has been working on combinatorial transition testing for dynamically adaptive systems. Funny to be in the jury with Myra Cohen who was part of my PhD jury almost 10 years ago. 😁

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Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 02/09/2026

(I corrected the imports and added a penalty)

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Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 02/09/2026

Students turning in the Java project we asked them to test and debug for the verification and validation exam. Does not compile because of missing import for assertTrue method. I guess he forgot to ask the agent/LLM. 🤭

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Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 31/08/2026

Nouvelle semaine. Et déjà des défenses de mémoires en rafale à 8h, 10h et 12h. En ouvrant LinkedIn vendredi fin de journée après une semaine de cours préparatoires, examens, défenses et soumission d’un papier de journal, j’avais l’écran suivant. Je me demande ce que j’aurai ce vendredi. 😅

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Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 21/08/2026

These weeks are the prep courses in informatics. 4 sessions of 2h each for 2 groups with @bvdose.bsky.social. Too much work on top of resit exams + MSc thesis defenses (guess who is presiding over almost all of the juries this year? ... yep, @bvdose.bsky.social and yt). #aintnorestforthewicked

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Reposted by Xavier Devroey

Informatics Europe @informatics-europe.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Congrats to the IE Software Research Working Group for being part of the team behind the SRIA for the Future of Software! 🚀 A timely initiative aligned with our mission to foster collaboration and shape the future of #Informatics research & education in #Europe. Join us in Sep: tinyurl.com/3pfv5snb

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Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 19/08/2026

Fun fact: during one of the evaluations, we found a public API with an endpoint that was not in the documentation. After contacting the developers, they told us that it was an artifact from a previous maintenance and that it should be removed in the next release.

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Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 19/08/2026

The specification that is generated during execution provides the input and output of the API covered during the process. Comparing that documentation with the existing one indicates the level of coverage achieved.

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Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 19/08/2026

Now, why do I say it is also interesting for testing? Well, the tool will exercise different endpoints and can be configured to mutate only specific parts of the URLs (like parameter values) without requiring a specification as input (as most other tools do)... Looks pretty much like testing to me 😁

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Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 19/08/2026

From the list of valid and invalid URLs you have found, you can generate an Open REST API specification (previously, Swagger) pretty easily.

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Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 19/08/2026

The type of URLs will depend on the types of mutation operators enabled.

Initial Request: https://api.gbif.org/v1/species/?name=Homo+sapiens&rank=SPECIES
Masked Request: https://api.gbif.org/v1/species/<op>/?name-Homo+sapiens&rank=SPECIES
Possible Mutation: https://api.gbif.org/v1/species/search/?name-Homo+sapiens&rank=SPECIES

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Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 19/08/2026

The new URL can then be sent to the endpoint to verify its validity. Repeating the operation several times in an evolutionary computation algorithm allows for the discovery of more routes, parameters, and parameter values.

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Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 19/08/2026

Guess what is good at generating words from the same domain? An LLM. So, starting from a valid URL (you have to start somewhere), we use masking and ask the LLM to generate the missing part.

The following examples display different cases of masking a piece of data from a set of data:
- Masking a word of a sentence with a <WORD> token:
The cat is ‹WORD> home.
- Masking a parameter of a method with a < PARAM> token:
result = execute (3, <PARAM>)
- Masking a parameter value of a HTTP request with a ‹VALUE > token:
https://api.gbif.org/v1/species/?name=<VALUE>

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Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 19/08/2026

The idea is the following (in a 🥜🐚): you have an API endpoint, but you do not know how to use it. However, if the developers did it right, they should have used some domain knowledge to design the API, meaning that the words used to define the paths and parameters should be in the same neighborhood.

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Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 24/07/2026

Well done, ACM! I once thought you were among the good guys. What a fool I was. 😒

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Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 24/07/2026

Step (1) get a monopoly on CS research publications. Step (2) force everyone to pay APC for "Open access." Step (3) slide in some additional clauses to the CC-BY and CC-BY-NC-ND licenses. Step (3) sell access to your digital library to AI companies for LLM training.

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Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 24/07/2026

Excerpt from the "Author Rights Under ACM Open": "A separate grant of rights to ACM covers what ACM, as the Publisher, may do with the work, which includes [...] the right to license the Work to third parties, such as for training by LLMs, and [...]"

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Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 22/07/2026

The side effect of teaching interpreted languages such as Python as the first programming language: students are no longer bothered by LaTeX compilation errors as long as it produces a pdf file... 🙃

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Xavier Devroey @xdevroey.wsocial.eu · 16/07/2026

So we meet again, ATmosphere. I miss the news and lively discussions from my research communities, so this time, this account will be (mainly) about software engineering, software testing, and software development research. 😁 Any tips for a good ATmosphere - Fediverse (Mastodon mainly) bridge?

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