QuestWare: Gamifying the Quest for Software Tests

编写好的软件测试很难，不是每个软件开发人员最喜欢的职业，也不是编程教育的一个突出方面。由于测试不充分，程序崩溃，应用程序需要不断升级，当银行或飞行管理系统发现软件错误时会造成巨大的经济损失，汽车和其他安全相关系统的软件故障导致人员死亡。本项目从一个不同的和新颖的角度解决测试问题：游戏化是将潜在的乏味或无聊的任务转换为娱乐游戏的组成部分的方法，其中人类的竞争本性激励他们竞争和超越。通过将游戏化概念应用于软件测试，我们的目标是在几个方面影响测试：1。游戏化使我们能够克服教育中的缺陷，测试是一个被高度忽视的话题。这将使程序员具有更好的软件测试技能，尤其重要的是，最近的努力是教每个人编程，从年轻的年龄开始。游戏化使我们能够让从业者参与他们原本会忽视的测试任务，并让他们使用他们原本不会考虑的高级测试工具和技术。这将在程序员的日常活动中牢固地建立测试，并导致更高质量的程序。游戏化允许我们通过有目的的游戏众包测试任务。这将有助于解决无法自动计算的测试问题，并使我们能够通过整合人类智能来改进自动化技术，从而提高实践中的自动化程度，并导致更彻底的测试。本项目将采用不同手段的迭代探索，开发和评估的系统方法，以实现软件测试的游戏化。研究将通过测试和博弈论，并将利用严格的经验软件工程方法。该项目将是在软件测试背景下对游戏化的第一次系统性探索，也是通过解决教育，实践和自动化来改善测试的整体方法的第一次尝试。

Writing good software tests is difficult, not every software developer's favorite occupation, and not a prominent aspect in programming education. Because of insufficient testing, programs crash, apps need to be constantly upgraded, huge economic damage is caused when software bugs are discovered in banking or flight management systems, and people have died due to software failures in cars and other safety related systems.This project addresses the testing problem from a different and novel angle: Gamification is the approach of converting potentially tedious or boring tasks to components of entertaining gameplay, where the competitive nature of humans motivates them to compete and excel. By applying gamification concepts to software testing we aim to influence testing in several ways:1. Gamification allows us to overcome deficiencies in education, where testing is a highly neglected topic. This will lead to programmers with better software testing skills, and it is particularly important with the recent efforts to teach programming to everyone, starting at young ages.2. Gamification allows us to engage practitioners in testing tasks they would otherwise neglect, and get them to use advanced testing tools and techniques they would otherwise not consider. This will firmly establish testing in daily programmer activities, and lead to higher quality programs.3. Gamification allows us to crowdsource testing tasks through games with a purpose. This will help solving testing problems that cannot be computed automatically, and allows us to improve automated techniques by integrating human intelligence, thus increasing the degree of automation in practice, and leading to more thorough testing.This project will apply a systematic methodology of iterative exploration, development, and evaluation of different means to achieve gamification of software testing. Research will be informed by testing and game theory, and will make use of rigorous empirical software engineering methods. This project will be the first systematic exploration of gamification in the context of software testing, and the first attempt of a holistic approach to improve testing by addressing education, practice, and automation.