Article

A Comparative Case Study on the Impact of Test-Driven Development on Program Design and Test Coverage

Authors:

Maria Siniaalto,

Pekka AbrahamssonAuthors Info & Claims

ESEM '07: Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement

Pages 275 - 284

https://doi.org/10.1109/ESEM.2007.2

Published: 20 September 2007 Publication History

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Abstract

Test-driven development (TDD) is a programming technique in which the tests are written prior to the source code. It is proposed that TDD is one of the most fundamental practices enabling the development of software in an agile and iterative manner. Both the literature and practice suggest that TDD practice yields several benefits. Essentially, it is claimed that TDD leads to an improved software design, which has a dramatic impact on the maintainability and further development of the system. The impact of TDD on program design has seldom come under the researchers' focus. This paper reports the results from a comparative case study of three software development projects where the effect of TDD on program design was measured using object-oriented metrics. The results show that the effect of TDD on program design was not as evident as expected, but the test coverage was significantly superior to iterative test-last development.

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Zaidman ARompaey BDeursen ADemeyer S(2018)Studying the co-evolution of production and test code in open source and industrial developer test processes through repository miningEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-010-9143-716:3(325-364)Online publication date: 26-Dec-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10664-010-9143-7
Bannerman SMartin A(2018)A multiple comparative study of test-with development product changes and their effects on team speed and product qualityEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-010-9137-516:2(177-210)Online publication date: 26-Dec-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10664-010-9137-5
Romano SFucci DScanniello GTurhan BJuristo NBeecham SKitchenham BMacDonell S(2016)Results from an Ethnographically-informed Study in the Context of Test Driven DevelopmentProceedings of the 20th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering10.1145/2915970.2915996(1-10)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2915970.2915996
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A Comparative Case Study on the Impact of Test-Driven Development on Program Design and Test Coverage

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ESEM '07: Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement

September 2007

493 pages

ISBN:0769528864

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IEEE Computer Society

United States

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Published: 20 September 2007

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Overall Acceptance Rate 130 of 594 submissions, 22%

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Zaidman ARompaey BDeursen ADemeyer S(2018)Studying the co-evolution of production and test code in open source and industrial developer test processes through repository miningEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-010-9143-716:3(325-364)Online publication date: 26-Dec-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10664-010-9143-7
Bannerman SMartin A(2018)A multiple comparative study of test-with development product changes and their effects on team speed and product qualityEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-010-9137-516:2(177-210)Online publication date: 26-Dec-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10664-010-9137-5
Romano SFucci DScanniello GTurhan BJuristo NBeecham SKitchenham BMacDonell S(2016)Results from an Ethnographically-informed Study in the Context of Test Driven DevelopmentProceedings of the 20th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering10.1145/2915970.2915996(1-10)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2915970.2915996
Fucci DJalote PBriand LHoek A(2014)Understanding the dynamics of test-driven developmentCompanion Proceedings of the 36th International Conference on Software Engineering10.1145/2591062.2591086(690-693)Online publication date: 31-May-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2591062.2591086
Diepenbeck MSoeken MGroße DDrechsler RZhu HMuccini HChen Z(2013)Towards automatic scenario generation from coverage informationProceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Automation of Software Test10.5555/2662413.2662432(82-88)Online publication date: 18-May-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/2662413.2662432
Kollanus S(2011)Critical issues on test-driven developmentProceedings of the 12th international conference on Product-focused software process improvement10.5555/2022348.2022382(322-336)Online publication date: 20-Jun-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/2022348.2022382
Pančur MCiglarič M(2011)Impact of test-driven development on productivity, code and testsInformation and Software Technology10.1016/j.infsof.2011.02.00253:6(557-573)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.infsof.2011.02.002
Madeyski L(2010)The impact of Test-First programming on branch coverage and mutation score indicator of unit testsInformation and Software Technology10.1016/j.infsof.2009.08.00752:2(169-184)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.infsof.2009.08.007

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Does Test-Driven Development Improve the Program Code? Alarming Results from a Comparative Case Study

Test-Driven Development: Concepts, Taxonomy, and Future Direction

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