CISC 879 Quest #2

Spring 2004

Name:_____________________________________ Total Points Earned:_________/ 50

This is a take home exam. You may look at the papers we read, the slides from the classtime, and your notes. You should work individually, without any collaboration with others in the course, or any other person. You may ask for clarification of the questions from the instructor. It would be appreciated if you typed your answers rather than giving handwritten answers. Please be concise and clear in your answers, with citations to the papers to justify your answers. You may take as much time as you want, between the time the quest is distributed and it is due. The quest must be given to the instructor directly, placed under her office door (101D Smith) or emailed to her by 5 pm, May 17, 2004.

A. (15 points) Test Adequacy and Coverage.

State three main points that you believe are the most important facts for a software development firm to know about test adequacy criteria and coverage, as they determine when to stop testing. Justify your opinion with evidence and conclusions drawn from the papers we read.

B. (15 points) Regression Testing.

1. Summarize the various problems being addressed in regression testing, including the motivation for addressing each of these problems.

2. State your perspective of where the state of the art stands in each of the problems discussed above. That is, which problems do you see as having good solutions now, and which ones need much more attention (due to what limitations?)? Justify your answers through examples from the papers. Do you see issues that have not really been raised yet, but will need to be addressed as we move to testing applications run in open computing environments (i.e., computing machines networked and connected through the internet)?

C. (5 points) Test Oracles.

What do you see as the biggest obstacle to automating test oracle development? Justify your answer.

D. (15 points) SoftwareTesting Research and Practice.

We have read a lot of papers spanning various aspects of software testing.

1. What is your view of the state of the art in software testing? Justify your answer.
2. We read papers from the early 90’s and then many recent papers. What is your view of how software testing research contributions have changed over the past 10-14 years?
3. What do you believe are the most important problems to be focusing on in software testing in the future? Justfy your answer.