Class (integration) test orders: further research and pratice

任何面向对象软件系统的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，表明类（集成）测试的顺序？单元测试和集成测试类应该使用哪些测试设计技术？虽然在这两个问题上有相当多的报道，但仍有许多工作要做。一方面，类（集成）测试技术大多是在没有考虑任何集成过程的情况下描述的。另一方面，集成过程的提出并没有考虑如何在实践中使用，沿着类（集成）测试设计技术。似乎缺乏关于如何使用类集成过程来进行类（集成）测试的研究和实际结果。因此，上述两个问题往往很难回答：我们不知道如何将这两种战略结合起来，以及这种结合会带来什么样的好处。本研究建议旨在提供更值得信赖的（研究）结果，测试工程师和管理人员如何，以及在何种程度上，类（集成）测试技术受益（或不）使用集成过程。这项研究也可能导致定义新的类（集成）测试技术和新的类集成过程，以及支持这些策略的（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.