| 1. |
- Clark, David, et al.
(författare)
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Information Transformation : An Underpinning Theory for Software Engineering
- 2015
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Ingår i: 2015 IEEE/ACM 37th IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering, Vol 2. - : IEEE. - 9781479919345 ; , s. 599-602
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Software engineering lacks underpinning scientific theories both for the software it produces and the processes by which it does so. We propose that an approach based on information theory can provide such a theory, or rather many theories. We envision that such a benefit will be realised primarily through research based on the quantification of information involved and a mathematical study of the limiting laws that arise. However, we also argue that less formal but more qualitative uses for information theory will be useful. The main argument in support of our vision is based on the fact that both a program and an engineering process to develop such a program are fundamentally processes that transform information. To illustrate our argument we focus on software testing and develop an initial theory in which a test suite is input/output adequate if it achieves the channel capacity of the program as measured by the mutual information between its inputs and its outputs. We outline a number of problems, metrics and concrete strategies for improving software engineering, based on information theoretical analyses. We find it likely that similar analyses and subsequent future research to detail them would be generally fruitful for software engineering.
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| 2. |
- Marculescu, Bogdan, et al.
(författare)
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An initial industrial evaluation of interactive search-based testing for embedded software
- 2015
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Ingår i: Applied Soft Computing. - : Elsevier. - 1568-4946 .- 1872-9681. ; 29, s. 26-39
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Search-based software testing promises the ability to generate and evaluate large numbers of test cases at minimal cost. From an industrial perspective, this could enable an increase in product quality without a matching increase in the time and effort required to do so. Search-based software testing, however, is a set of quite complex techniques and approaches that do not immediately translate into a process for use with most companies. For example, even if engineers receive the proper education and training in these new approaches, it can be hard to develop a general fitness function that covers all contingencies. Furthermore, in industrial practice, the knowledge and experience of domain specialists are often key for effective testing and thus for the overall quality of the final software system. But it is not clear how such domain expertise can be utilized in a search-based system. This paper presents an interactive search-based software testing (ISBST) system designed to operate in an industrial setting and with the explicit aim of requiring only limited expertise in software testing. It uses SBST to search for test cases for an industrial software module, while also allowing domain specialists to use their experience and intuition to interactively guide the search. In addition to presenting the system, this paper reports on an evaluation of the system in a company developing a framework for embedded software controllers. A sequence of workshops provided regular feedback and validation for the design and improvement of the ISBST system. Once developed, the ISBST system was evaluated by four electrical and system engineers from the company (the ’domain specialists’ in this context) used the system to develop test cases for a commonly used controller module. As well as evaluating the utility of the ISBST system, the study generated interaction data that were used in subsequent laboratory experimentation to validate the underlying search-based algorithm in the presence of realistic, but repeatable, interactions. The results validate the importance that automated software testing tools in general, and search-based tools, in particular, can leverage input from domain specialists while generating tests. Furthermore, the evaluation highlighted benefits of using such an approach to explore areas that the current testing practices do not cover or cover insufficiently. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Poulding, Simon, et al.
(författare)
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Re-using generators of complex test data
- 2015
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Ingår i: 2015 IEEE 8th International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (ICST). - : IEEE Computer Society. - 9781479971251 ; , s. Article number 7102605-
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The efficiency of random testing can be improved by sampling test inputs using a generating program that incorporates knowledge about the types of input most likely to detect faults in the software-under-test (SUT). But when the input of the SUT is a complex data type - such as a domain-specific string, array, record, tree, or graph - creating such a generator may be time- consuming and may require the tester to have substantial prior experience of the domain. In this paper we propose the re-use of generators created for one SUT on other SUTs that take the same complex data type as input. The re-use of a generator in this way would have little overhead, and we hypothesise that the re-used generator will typically be as least as efficient as the most straightforward form of random testing: sampling test inputs from the uniform distribution. We investigate this proposal for two data types using five generators. We assess test efficiency against seven real-world SUTs, and in terms of both structural coverage and the detection of seeded faults. The results support the re-use of generators for complex data types, and suggest that if a library of generators is to be maintained for this purpose, it is possible to extend library generators to accommodate the specific testing requirements of newly-encountered SUTs. © 2015 IEEE.
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| 5. |
- Poulding, Simon, et al.
(författare)
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The optimisation of stochastic grammars to enable cost-effective probabilistic structural testing
- 2015
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Ingår i: Journal of Systems and Software. - : Elsevier. - 0164-1212 .- 1873-1228. ; 103, s. 296-310
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The effectiveness of statistical testing, a probabilistic structural testing strategy, depends on the characteristics of the probability distribution from which test inputs are sampled. Metaheuristic search has been shown to be a practical method of optimising the characteristics of such distributions. However, the applicability of the existing search-based algorithm is limited by the requirement that the software's inputs must be a fixed number of ordinal values. In this paper we propose a new algorithm that relaxes this limitation and so permits the derivation of probability distributions for a much wider range of software. The representation used by the new algorithm is based on a stochastic grammar supplemented with two novel features: conditional production weights and the dynamic partitioning of ordinal ranges. We demonstrate empirically that a search algorithm using this representation can optimise probability distributions over complex input domains and thereby enable costeffective statistical testing, and that the use of both conditional production weights and dynamic partitioning can be beneficial to the search process. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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| 6. |
- Poulding, Simon, et al.
(författare)
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Using Citation Behavior to Rethink Academic Impact in Software Engineering
- 2015
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Ingår i: ACM-IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement. - 9781467378994 ; , s. 140-43
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Although citation counts are often considered a measure of academic impact, they are criticized for failing to evaluate impact as intended. In this paper we propose that software engineering citations may be classified according to how the citation is used by the author of the citing paper, and that through this classification of citation behaviour it is possible to achieve a more refined understanding of the cited paper’s impact. Our objective in this work is to conduct an initial evaluation using the citation behaviour taxonomy proposed by Bornmann and Daniel. We independently classified citations to ten highly-cited papers published at the International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM). The degree to which classifications were consistent between researchers was analyzed in order to assess the clarity of Bornmann and Daniel’s taxonomy. We found poor to fair agreement between researchers even though the taxonomy was perceived as relatively easy to apply for the majority of citations. We were nevertheless able to identify clear differences in the profile of citation behaviors between the cited papers. We conclude that an improved taxonomy is required if classification is to be reliable, and that a degree of automation would improve reliability as well as reduce the time taken to make a classification.
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