CAREER: Advancing Regression Testing: Theory and Practice

尽管有引入新bug的风险，但由于无休止的需求更改，软件项目不断发展。 因此，软件开发人员实践回归测试--在每个项目修订时运行测试--以检查最近的项目更改不会破坏任何功能。 虽然回归测试很重要，但由于大量的修订和测试，它的成本很高，而且据报道成本正在增加。 测试选择、测试用例优先级、测试套件缩减和并行化等几种技术可以降低回归测试成本，但它们的适用性和成本降低取决于软件开发过程，即，开发人员编写代码、构建项目和运行测试的方式。 这些过程不断发展，有时使现有的回归测试技术不适用或无效。 PI确定了影响适用性和有效性的五个新兴趋势：使用多种编程语言，使用各种开发工具，使用基于云的持续集成服务，修订和测试数量的增加，以及不确定性代码的激增。为了显著降低回归测试成本-执行时间，机器资源，以及延迟发现bug而浪费开发人员的时间，PI提出了包括设计和开发在内的五项研究活动：（1）用多种编程语言编写的项目的回归测试技术，（2）回归测试技术，其消除了由于行为保留转换和不适当的代码结构而导致的不必要的低效率，（3）降低云中测试成本的技术，（4）降低检测引入错误的修订版的成本的技术，以及（5）识别、调试和控制测试中的非确定性的技术。 这一建议有可能大大降低软件测试的成本，从而减少因软件错误而造成的财务损失和人员伤亡。该项目将整合研究和教育开发新的课程的基础上新开发的想法，沿着一个新的概念，称为顶级教学，插入软件工程材料到其他课程，其中的主题和学生依赖于软件开发，需要了解良好的软件开发实践的发展。

Software projects constantly evolve due to endless requirement changes despite the risk of introducing new bugs. Thus, software developers practice regression testing -- running tests at each project revision -- to check that recent project changes do not break any functionality. Although regression testing is important, it is costly due to the large number of revisions and tests, and the cost is reportedly increasing. Several techniques -- test selection, test-case prioritization, test-suite reduction, and parallelization -- can reduce regression testing cost, but their applicability and cost reduction depend on software development processes, i.e., the way developers write code, build the projects, and run tests. These processes are constantly evolving, sometimes making the existing regression-testing techniques inapplicable or ineffective. The PI identified five emerging trends that impact applicability and effectiveness: use of multiple programming languages, use of variousdevelopment tools, use of cloud-based continuous integration services, increase in the number of revisions and tests, and proliferation of non-deterministic code.To significantly reduce the regression testing costs -- execution time, machine resources, and wasted developers' time caused by delays in detecting bugs -- the PI proposes five research activities that include designing and developing: (1) regression-testing techniques for projects written in multiple programming languages, (2) regression-testing techniques that remove unnecessary inefficiency due to behavior-preserving transformations and inadequate code structure, (3) techniques to reduce the cost of testing in the cloud, (4) techniques to reduce the cost of detecting the bug-introducing revision, and (5) techniques to identify, debug, and control non-determinism in tests. This proposal has the potential to substantially reduce the cost of software testing, which will reduce financial losses and casualties due to software bugs. The project will integrate research and education by developing new curriculum based on newly developed ideas, along with the development of a new concept called top-teaching, which inserts Software Engineering materials into other courses, where the subject matter and students are dependent on software development and need to be informed about good software development practices.