Comparing the Effectiveness of Equivalence Partitioning, Branch Testing and Code Reading by Stepwise Abstraction Applied by Subjects

Juristo, Natália; Vegas, Sira; Solari, Martín; Abrahão, Silvia; Ramos, Isabel

doi:10.1109/icst.2012.113

Cited by 26 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…The bugs types were motivated by two classification schemes identified in [3] and used in [19]. According to one scheme a bug can be classified as omission or commission.…”

Section: Task Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the effect of code regularity on comprehension

Jbara

Feitelson

2014

Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Program Comprehension

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It is naturally easier to comprehend simple code relative to complicated code. Regrettably, there is little agreement on how to effectively measure code complexity. As a result simple generalpurpose metrics are often used, such as lines of code (LOC), McCabe's cyclomatic complexity (MCC), and Halstead's metrics. But such metrics just count syntactic features, and ignore details of the code's global structure, which may also have an effect on understandability. In particular, we suggest that code regularity-where the same structures are repeated time after time-may significantly reduce complexity, because once one figures out the basic repeated element it is easier to understand additional instances. We demonstrate this by controlled experiments where subjects perform cognitive tasks on different versions of the same basic function. The results indicate that versions with significant regularity lead to better comprehension, while taking similar time, despite being longer and having higher MCC. These results indicate that regularity is another attribute of code that should be taken into account in the context of studying the code's complexity and comprehension. Moreover, the fact that regularity may compensate for LOC and MCC demonstrates that complexity cannot be decomposed into independently addable contributions by individual attributes.

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“…The bugs types were motivated by two classification schemes identified in [3] and used in [19]. According to one scheme a bug can be classified as omission or commission.…”

Section: Task Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the effect of code regularity on comprehension

Jbara

Feitelson

2014

Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Program Comprehension

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“…There are also replications of studies, using the same experimental material in various contexts (Juristo et al 2012) or varying experimental context and material (Runeson et al 2014), i.e., operational replications. However, there are very few in vivo UV studies listed in the above summaries; most of them are conducted using students in various education stages, which may be a threat to the external validity, as well as outcome variation caused by background factors.…”

Section: Motivation For a Replicated Study With A Unit Verification Pmentioning

confidence: 99%

A quantitative analysis of the unit verification perspective on fault distributions in complex software systems: an operational replication

2015

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Unit verification, including software inspections and unit tests, is usually the first code verification phase in the software development process. However, principles of unit verification are weakly explored, mostly due to the lack of data, since unit verification data are rarely systematically collected and only a few studies have been published with such data from industry. Therefore, we explore the theory of fault distributions, originating in the quantitative analysis by Fenton and Ohlsson, in the weakly explored context of unit verification in large-scale software development. We conduct a quantitative case study on a sequence of four development projects on consecutive releases of the same complex software product line system for telecommunication exchanges. We replicate the operationalization from earlier studies, analyzed hypotheses related to the Pareto principle of fault distribution, persistence of faults, effects of module size, and quality in terms of fault densities, however, now from the perspective of unit verification. The patterns in unit verification results resemble those of later verification phases, e.g., regarding the Pareto principle, and may thus be used for prediction and planning purposes. Using unit verification results as predictors may improve the quality and efficiency of software verification.

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“…The scope of the empirical studies is also usually restricted to one or a few QA techniques that are applied in isolation at a defined process stage. In their famous study, Juristo et al [17], for example, compared the effectiveness of functional testing, structural testing, and code inspection considering relevant context factors. One conclusion was that equivalence partitioning and branch coverage are equally effective.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Large-Scale Technology Evaluation Study: Effects of Model-based Analysis and Testing

Kläs

Bauer

Dereani

et al. 2015

2015 IEEE/ACM 37th IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering

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Besides model-based development, model-based quality assurance and the tighter integration of static and dynamic quality assurance activities are becoming increasingly relevant in the development of software-intensive systems. Thus, this paper reports on an empirical study aimed at investigating the promises regarding quality improvements and cost savings. The evaluation comprises data from 13 industry case studies conducted during a three-year large-scale research project in the transportation domain (automotive, avionics, rail system). During the evaluation, we identified major goals and strategies associated with (integrated) model-based analysis and testing and evaluated the improvements achieved. The aggregated results indicate an average cost reduction of between 29% and 34% for verification and validation and of between 22% and 32% for defect removal. Compared with these cost savings, improvements regarding test coverage (~8%), number of remaining defects (~13%), and time to market (~8%) appear less noticeable.

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Comparing the Effectiveness of Equivalence Partitioning, Branch Testing and Code Reading by Stepwise Abstraction Applied by Subjects

Cited by 26 publications

References 56 publications

On the effect of code regularity on comprehension

On the effect of code regularity on comprehension

A quantitative analysis of the unit verification perspective on fault distributions in complex software systems: an operational replication

A Large-Scale Technology Evaluation Study: Effects of Model-based Analysis and Testing

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