How Developers Use Data Race Detection Tools

Abstract

Developers need help with multithreaded programming. We investigate how two program analysis tools are used by developers at Google: ThreadSafety, an annotation-based static data race analysis, and TSan, a dynamic data race de- tector. The data was collected by interviewing seven veteran industry developers at Google, and provides unique insight into how four different teams use tooling in different ways to help with multithreaded programming. The result is a collection of perceived pros and cons of using ThreadSafety and TSan, as well as general issues with multithreading.