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Research on automated software testing in practice

Summary

Background: The more widespread use of programmatic (as opposed to UI-driven) automated tests was probably one of the biggest improvements in widely used software development practices in the years since about 1999. However, while unit tests (focussing on a single, well-isolated module) are relatively easy to write in this manner, integration tests (focussing on the interplay of many modules) can be difficult to write, expensive to run, unreliable, and difficult to understand and modify.

Objectives:
  • What pains do real teams in various companies perceive in these respects?
  • How problematic do they perceive their situation to be?
  • How appropriate is this perception?
  • How do teams cope with their testing problems?
  • How do those approaches come about?
  • What about these behaviors appears to be helpful? How?
  • What about them appears to be problematic? How? How to change that?

Methods: (to be added)

Status: (to be added)