CDD Meeting, Tuesday, 31.1.2008, 10:00

Next Meeting

• Thursday, 5.2.2008, 10:00

Tasks

Andreas

• Forumulate Experiment Hypothesis (Andreas)
• Fix AutoTest for courses
  • New release
• Write documentation and videos tutorials (together with final release)
• [done] Commit dangling patch from 6.0 to 6.1
• [done] Make it so that tester target never has extraction or execution enabled
  • remove hack from CDD_MANAGER.schedule_testing_restart
• [done] Make CDD Windows apear by default
• Finish tuple_002 test case
• Retest if test cases with errors are properly ignored (after 6.1 port)

Arno

• When test class gets removed manually, update test suite
• Clean up test case in interpreter after each execution (through garbage collection?)
• Build releasable delivery for Linux (after each Beta I guess...)
• Display ignored test class compilation errors (looks like we will have this for free in 6.1)
• Make sure CDD Tools are visible by default (what layout would you prefer?)
  • Main tool shares tabs with clusters/features tool, output tool after C output tool
• Red bg for failing test cases in view
• Write new simple "New Manual Test Case" dialog
• Tesy case for (user defined) expanded types
• test case containing feature names with underscores and "like Current"

Bug Fixing

• Result type (like Current) produces syntax error in new test class
• Fix interpreter hang after runtime crash
• Check why EiffelStudio quits after debugging a test routine and ignoring violations
• Check if interpreter compilation errors are propagated correctly (seems to start interpreter even though compilation has failed)

Ilinca

• Integrate variable declarations into AutoTest trunk (by 8.2.2008)

Stefan

• [DONE] Uniqe id to tag test cases with. To be used in logs. So test logs are resiliant to test class renamings
• [DONE, except probably for bad memory corruption bugs which didn't occur anymore since agents are ignored] Make popup on interpreter crash go away (win32 only)
• [RECURRENT] Build releasable delivery on Windows
• Logging
  • What data to log?
  • Implement storing
  • Define how students should submit logs
• Data Gathering
  • Define what data to gather
  • Define how to process gather data
• Second Chance re-run to find true prestate (with Jocelyn)
• Allow for test case extraction of passing routine invocations (with Jocelyn)
• Rebuilding manual test suite through extraction and synthesizing
• Find performance bottleneck of test case extraction and propose extraction method for second chance

Bugs/Things to look at

• For big projects (like ES itself) background compilation of the interpreter leads to completely unresponsive ES
• Is it still necessary to ever call the routine update actions with argument "void"?
• Crash upon closing of EiffelStudio (feature call on void target in breakpoint tool)

Manu

• Define Project for SoftEng (due by next meeting)
  • Find System level test suite for us to test students code
  • Find project with pure functional part
• Install CDD in student labs (Manu)
• Devise questionnaires
  • Initial (due next meeting after Manu's vacation)
  • Midterm
  • Final
• Analyze questionnaires
• Rework example profiles
• Assis will use CDD to get a feel for it and create a test suite for the students to start with

Unassigned

• Cache debug values when extracting several test cases.
• Enable execution and extraction by default for new projects.
• Make CDD Window and CDD Log Window visiable by default
• "Debug selected test routine" should be grayed out if no test case is currently selected
• Testing V2 Application should not interupt flow
• Retest if test cases with errors are properly ignored (after 6.1 port)
• Extraction for inline agents not currently working (at least not always)
  • Create inline agent test case
  • Fix extraction for inline agents
• Revive system level test suite

Questionnaires

• Use ELBA

Software Engineering Project

• One large project, but divided into testable subcomponents
• Students required to write test cases
• Fixed API to make things uniformly testable
• Public/Secret test cases (similar to Zeller course)
• Competitions:
  • Group A test cases applied to Group A project
  • Group A test cases applied to Groupt B project

• Idea how to cancel out bias while allowing fair grading:
  • Subtasks 1 and 2, Students divided into groups A and B
  • First both groups do 1, A is allowed to use tool, B not
  • Then both groups do 2, B is allowed to use tool, A not
  • Bias cancelation:
    • Project complexity
    • Experience of students
    • Experience gained in first subtask, when developing second
    • Risk: One task might be better suited for the tool than the other

Data to harvest

• IDE Time with CDD(extraction) enabled / IDE Time with CDD(extraction) disabled
• Test Case Source (just final version, or all versions?)
  • Use Profiler to get coverage approximation
• TC Meta Data (with timestamps -> Evolution of Test Case)
  • TC Added/Removed/Changed
  • TC Outcome (transitions from FAIL/PASS/UNRESOLVED[bad_communication <-> does_not_compile <-> bad_input])
  • TC execution time
  • Modificiations to a testcase (compiler needs to recompile)
• Development Session Data
  • IDE Startup
  • File save
• Questionnairs
  • Initial
  • Final

Logging

• "Meta" log entries
  • Project opened (easy)
  • CDD enable/disable (easy)
  • general EiffelStudio action log entries for Developer Behaviour (harder... what do we need??)

• CDD actions log entries
  • Compilation of interpreter (start, end, duration)
  • Execution of test cases (start, end, do we need individual duration of each test cases that gets executed?)
  • Extraction of new test case (extraction time)

• Test Suite Status
  • Test suite: after each refresh log list of all test cases (class level, needed because it's not possible to know when manual test cases get added...)
  • Test class: (do we need info on this level)
  • Test routine: status (basically as you see it in the tool)

Experiment Hypotheses

Do Contracts improve Tests?

• Is there a correlation between Tests quantity or quality and the quantity or quality of contracts?

Corellation between failure/fault type and test type?

• Do certain kind of tests find certain kind of failures/faults?

Use of CDD increases development productivity

• Did the use of testing decrease development time?

• Meassures:
  • Number of compilations
  • Number of saves
  • Number of revisions
  • IDE time
  • Asking the students

Emphasis on quetionnair result. Correlation with logs only if it makes sense

Use of CDD increases code correctness

• Is there a relation between code correctness of project (vs. some system level test suite) and test activity?

• Measures:
  • number of tests
  • number of times test were run
  • Number of pass/fail, fail/pass transitions, (also consider unresolved/* transitions ?)
  • Secret test suite

Developer Profile: Is there a correlation between Developer Profile and the way they use testing tools

• How did students use the testing tools?
• Are ther clusters of similar use?
• What is charactersitic for these clusters?
• Meassures:
  • Aksing students before and after
  • Are there projects where tests initially always fail resp. pass
  • How often do they test?
  • How correct is their project?

Midterm questionnaire will be used to phrase questions for final questionnaire.

Example profiles

• Waldundwiesen Hacker
  • No explicit structure. Does whatever seems appriorate at the time. No QA plan.
• Agile
  • Processes interleave. Conscionsness for QA. Maybe even Test First or TDD.
• Waterfall inspired
  • Explicit process model. Phases don't interleave.
•  ?

How do extracted, synthesized and manually written test cases compare?

• Which tests are the most useful to students?
• How many tests are there in each category?
• What's the test suite quality of each category?
• Were some excluded from testing more often than others?
• How many red/green and green/red transitions are there in each category?
• Which had compile-time errors most often that did not get fixed?
• Meassures:
  • LOC
  • Number of tests
  • Number of executions
  • Outcome transitions