Ptidej Laboratory

Polytechnique Montréal, Montréal, Québec
What the facility does

Developing theories, methods, and tools, to evaluate and to improve the quality of object-oriented programs.

Areas of expertise

We develop theories, methods and tools that enable us to understand, evaluate and improve the quality of software systems, by promoting the use of idioms, design patterns and architectural patterns. We want to formalize, identify the occurrences of and improve patterns. We also carry out experiments to evaluate the impact of patterns on the quality of software systems. We develop various tools, notably the Pattern Trace Identification, Detection, and Enhancement in Java (Ptidej) tool suite and Taupe, in order to evaluate and enhance the quality of software systems by promoting the use of patterns for programming languages, design and architecture. We are one of a small number of software engineering laboratories in the world permanently equipped with oculometers, which we use to understand developers’ behaviours and improve their tools.

Research services

We offer expertise in understanding and analysing software. For example, using the Ptidej tools suite, we analyse various software system codes, including that of Google Chrome, in order to provide suggestions for improving these codes or for automatically correcting problems, thus facilitating the work of code developers and reviewers. We also offer expertise in usability tests, by the use of oculometers (SR Research’s  EyeLink II and Seeing Machines’ faceLAB 5).

Sectors of application
  • Education
  • Information and communication technologies and media
  • Utilities

Equipment

Function

Oculometers

An oculometer captures developers’ eye movements on their screens while they perform their duties, with a view to analysing and understanding their behaviours and equipping them with better adapted tools.

  • Benchmark Consulting
  • CMC Électronics
  • CRIAQ
  • CS Canada
  • Google
  • Intégratik and SNCF