Lambda the Ultimate

What is the latest thinking on how to deal with the fact that the dynamic nature of a program can be so terribly different from the static source code representation? Surely, we want to be able to better represent the dynamism of our systems for many reasons, not the least of which is debugging.

(Miscellaneous, random, uneducated sampling follows) There are various systems for examing the trace of dynamic systems or debugging anything, which are all useful work. Can we go further? How about a system that lets me understand dynamism from the start of development, through the creation of linear source code, and on to debugging. Maybe visual programming can help (or does it fall victim to the old adage, "now they have two problems")? Visula takes a swing by giving a 2D view of time and data. Maybe the best we can do is use models to try to force us to understand our own systems and avoid getting into bad places.

Hasn't this issue been around since folks invented computers? What approaches arleady exist? What does/n't work? What is tenable in the near future, perhaps?