Teaching Property-Based Testing

Abstract

Given the large dimensions of software algorithms, the creation of unit test sets is both very difficult to use as an assurance of software quality and also very resource consuming. Some of the industry has already focused on this issue, and several methods are being used to cope with traditional testing shortcomings. Property-based testing has been one of these techniques and has been gaining traction, mainly due to the shift to functional programming techniques which can be seen in most of the popular languages and platforms. To give students tools that can increase the quality of their production as software developers, property-based testing has been taught in the Advanced Programming Techniques course of the master's program in Informatics Engineering of the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto.