The paper investigates how large language models (LLMs) handle bug fixing versus problem solving in competitive programming. Using a dataset of ~3,000 Codeforces submissions and their human fixes, the authors compare LLM-generated patches to human patches and assess whether LLMs prefer to modify buggy code or generate new solutions. Results show that LLMs often alter more lines than necessary and sometimes produce entirely new solutions, performing better when allowed to generate solutions from scratch rather than patching existing code.
By Alexandru Stefan Stoica, Traian Rebedea, Marian Cristian Mihaescu
arXiv:2507. 22580v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Automated Program Repair (APR) seeks to automatically correct software bugs without requiring human intervention.
By Marcos Fuster-Pena, David de-Fitero-Dominguez, Antonio Garcia-Cabot, Eva Garcia-Lopez
arXiv:2607. 00990v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large language model (LLM)-based software engineering agents are increasingly developed to resolve software issues by generating patches from issue reports and code repositories.
By Yaoqi Guo, Yang Liu, Jie M. Zhang, Yun Ma, Yiling Lou, Zhenpeng Chen
arXiv:2608. 14863v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: LLM-based coding agents have advanced rapidly on single-process SWE tasks, with frontier models now clustering in the high-70s on SWE-bench Verified.
By Yibo Yan, Huijuan Wang, Junzhou He, Yizhuo Liang, Shaoyu Wang, Huanchen Sun, Seo Jin Park
arXiv:2608. 09072v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large language model-powered coding agents are increasingly used to modify existing code repositories, for example, by adding features or fixing bugs.
By Xin Zhou, Chun Yong Chong, Kisub Kim, Yun Peng, Rui Shu, Zihan Wu, Xu Han, Guowen Yuan, Zeyang Zhuang, Jounghoon Kim, Jeongjin Ju, Seongmin Ju, Taein Yoon, David Lo
arXiv:2608. 14065v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Background: Software bugs remain a critical challenge in development, necessitating effective Automated Program Repair (APR) techniques.
By Junchi Liu, Ali Bigdeli, Roya Daneshi, Atu Ambala, Sudipto Ghosh, Fabio Santos