Class (integration) test orders: further research and pratice

面向对象软件系统的任何增量类测试方法都必须回答以下两个问题：应该选择什么样的集成过程，指示以何种顺序对类进行（集成）测试？哪些测试设计技术应该用于单元和集成测试类？尽管在这两个问题上都有相当多的报道，但仍有许多工作要做。一方面，类（集成）测试技术的描述大多没有考虑到任何集成过程。另一方面，集成过程的建议没有考虑到在实践中如何使用它们，以及类（集成）测试设计技术。对于如何利用类集成过程进行类（集成）测试，似乎缺乏研究和实践成果。因此，通常很难回答上述两个问题中的任何一个：我们不知道这两种策略如何一起应用，以及这种组合会带来什么样的好处。这个研究计划旨在为测试工程师和管理人员提供更值得信赖的（研究）结果，说明类（集成）测试技术如何以及在多大程度上从使用集成过程中受益（或没有受益）。这项研究还可能导致新的类（集成）测试技术和新的类集成过程的定义，以及支持这些策略（半）自动化的原型工具。总体目标是促进面向对象软件系统中的类（集成）测试，从而可能导致降低测试成本。

Any incremental class testing approach for an object-oriented software system has to answer the two following questions: What integration process, indicating in which order classes are (integration) tested, should be selected? Which test design techniques should be used to unit and integration test classes? Although there is a fairly large number of reported works on both questions, much remains to be done. On the one hand, class (integration) testing techniques have mostly been described without any consideration for any integration process. On the other hand, integration processes have been suggested without much consideration for how they could be used in practice, along with class (integration) test design techniques. It appears that there is a lack of research and practical results on how a class integration process can be used to conduct class (integration) testing. Therefore, it is often difficult to answer any of the two aforementioned questions: We do not know how the two kinds of strategies can be applied together, and what kind of benefits would be revealed by such combination. This research proposal aims at providing more trustworthy (research) results to test engineers and managers on how, and to what extent, class (integration) testing techniques benefit (or not) from using an integration process. This research may also lead to the definition of new class (integration) testing techniques and new class integration processes, as well as prototype tools supporting the (semi-)automation of these strategies. The overall objective is to facilitate class (integration) testing in object-oriented software systems, thus likely leading to reduced testing costs.