An Evolution-Centric Perspective on Software Testing

Abstract

Useful software evolves: it is corrected, enhanced, and adapted to new platforms, resulting in new releases of systems. To validate these new releases, software engineers "regression test" them. Such regression testing is important for software quality, but it is also expensive, and in fact, often dominates overall software costs. This motivates an evolution-centric perspective on software testing, where emphasis is placed on regression testing. In this talk I describe research following this perspective. I first describe one particular approach to regression testing using regression test selection techniques (which reduce regression testing costs by selecting subsets of existing test suites for reexecution), present techniques for performing regression test selection, and describe empirical results obtained in studying those techniques. I then show how the evolution-centric perspective can be usefully extended beyond regression testing to other verification techniques.

Short bio

Prof.Gregg Rothermel is a Professor and Jensen Chair of Software Engineering in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Univ. of Nebraska where he is a founding member of the Laboratory for Empirically-based Software Quality Research and Development (ESQuaReD).

Prof. Rothermel's research interests include software engineering and program analysis, with emphases on the application of program analysis techniques to problems in software maintenance and testing, end-user software engineering, and empirical studies. He received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 1996 for his research on software maintenance and testing. In a recent ranking of International Software Engineering Scholars based on research productivity, Dr. Rothermel was tied for first (CACM V.50, Issue 6). Prof. Rothermel is a member of the Editorial Boards of IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering and the Empirical Software Engineering Journal.

Resources

• talk slide