Browsing by Subject "Software engineering"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    On the effectiveness of specification-based structural test-coverage criteria as test-data generators for safety-critical systems
    (2012-10) George, Devaraj
    Specification based testing aims to reduce the cost of testing and increase the reliability of systems that are of a safety critical nature. A major benefit of a formal specification is the ability to automatically construct test sequences that can be executed on the implementation software. A significant portion of the testing effort in such systems requires us to demonstrate test coverage as mandated by regulatory agencies. Specification based structural test-coverage criteria that mimic source code based criteria offer us a way to analyze the structure of the specification. This typically requires coverage of certain elements such as states, branches, and decisions. These formal specifications also provide us with a means to automatically generate test sequences to satisfy test coverage. Since one of the goals of software testing is to demonstrate the existence of faults, selection of test sequences that can reveal faults is of paramount importance. Nevertheless, the relationship between test-coverage criteria and fault detection is not well established in testing literature. In this dissertation, we investigate the effectiveness of test-coverage criteria when used to drive test-data generation in the safety-critical systems domain. We provide two core contributions. First, due to the lack of sufficient evidence in testing research regarding the quality of test sets generated to satisfy test-coverage criteria, we empirically evaluate the fault-finding ability of test-sets generated to various test coverage criteria proposed in the testing literature. Second, we study the effect of test-suite reduction techniques on the generated test-data sets to empirically evaluate the sensitivity of test-coverage criteria to test-suite reduction techniques. Our findings have raised serious doubts about the use of test-coverage criteria as test-data generators in this domain. In the initial studies conducted, test sequences generated to these coverage criteria perform significantly worse at fault detection when compared to random testing that uses the same effort measured in terms of time to generate and run tests for structural test-coverage criteria such as transition coverage. In the expanded study which was conducted following the initial studies, we evaluated the fault detection effectiveness of test suites reduced to satisfy both branch and MC/DC coverage criteria against a reduced test suite of equal size using a set of random test data. The results from the expanded study validate our earlier findings and have provided us with solid statistical evidence confirming that satisfaction of a highly complex coverage criterion alone is a poor indication of test suite quality. The findings from our studies indicate a need for methods to determine test adequacy that not only provide the desired coverage, but also lend themselves as targets for automated test generation techniques. These criteria must address the problem holistically to account for all factors influencing the quality of testing, including the program structure, the nature of the state space of the system under test, the test oracle used, and finally, the test generation mechanism itself. In addition, we find that reduction techniques designed to minimize the size of a test suite while maintaining structural coverage may significantly reduce the fault-finding effectiveness of the test suite.
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    Oral history interview with Beth Eddy
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-10) Eddy, Beth
    Beth Eddy grew up in rural New York state then graduated with a math degree from Elmhurst College (outside Chicago). She accepted a job in 1966 at Western Electric working on the pioneering ESS, initially in downtown Chicago and then relocating to the Bell Labs Indian Hill facility in Naperville. Her work involved assembly or machine language programming, eventually COBOL, supporting large databases for the ESS project. After three years, she moved into installation engineering for ESS. She describes tactics for women’s “voice” to be effectively heard in meetings. She led a protest against a men-only ‘Stag Picnic’ (described also in Lois Herr’s Women, Power and AT&T [2002]). With a promotion to department chief, she became the earliest women in Western Electric management. To achieve salary parity, she arranged a transfer to AT&T headquarters and worked in maintenance engineering, another male-dominated area, returning to Indian Hill (around 1980) as assistant manager of the data center and a development group. She then took on supervisory positions in Human Relations, building construction, software development, and switching installation. She discusses strategies for attracting women and African-American staff as well as managing a diverse workforce. She shares observations on the 1970s women’s movement and its subsequent evolution. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
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    Oral history interview with Eugene H. Spafford
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2013-11-12) Spafford, Eugene H.
    This interview with computer security pioneer Eugene Spafford spans from his early education to the near present (2013). He discusses how he came to focus on computer security as a research field and his long and ongoing career as a faculty member, editor-in-chief (Computers & Security), center director, and educator. A substantial portion of the interview addresses his work in founding and leading a premier center for computer security research—COAST Lab (Computer Operations, Audit, and Security Technology), which evolved to become CERIAS (Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security). CERIAS is the largest academic research center on information assurance and computer security and has had tremendous influence on the field from its pioneer research and education to its highly regarded symposiums and outreach. Among other topics Spafford discusses are intrusion detection research and development, Unix security, Tripwire, the Association for Computing Machinery, service to the federal government, and the importance of a sense of humor. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1116862, “Building an Infrastructure for Computer Security History.”
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    Oral history interview with Glenn Henry
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2001-08-07) Henry, Glenn
    Glenn Henry begins by briefly outlining his education and early work career prior to joining IBM. The majority of the interview focuses on Henry's work as a software systems engineer and manager at IBM in the 1970s. Henry was centrally involved in the software development and hardware definitions for IBM's early Midrange Series computers. He had managerial roles at IBM San Jose and IBM Boca Raton before leading a large team at the home of IBM Midrange Series hardware and software development, IBM Rochester. He details the programming effort for the operating System 3, the incremental advance with System 32, and the quantum leap IBM took with the development of System 38, a system Henry proposed--and one were the software was largely driving the definition of the hardware. The interview is particularly rich in detailing the relationship between software and hardware development as well as the technical and managerial successes and challenges with System 38.
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    Oral history interview with Helen Ann Bauer
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-08) Bauer, Helen Ann
    Helen Bauer studied computer science and mathematics at Purdue University, graduating in 1972 and then starting work as a Member of Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories in Naperville, Illinois. The interview describes Bell’s affirmative action committees and workshops and its corporate culture. Bauer relates her experiences moving into managerial positions beginning in 1977, finding role models in co-workers, organizing support groups for women in management, and relating anecdotes about challenges. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
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    Oral history interview with Joyce Malleck
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2008-08-01) Malleck, Joyce
    Joyce Malleck graduated from Mundelein College with a major in math and a minor in physics, and then received a master’s degree in math from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She accepted a job at Western Electric and went to work at the Bell Labs facility in Naperville, Illinois. She did programming courses at the corporate training center in Princeton NJ, learning COBOL, assembler, PL/1, and a proprietary Bell database management language. (She later did a MBA at the University of Chicago, completed in 1980.) An early assignment was programming to direct an automatic wiring machine for the ESS manufacturing. She was promoted to department chief, initially maintaining a data center’s operating system then doing software and database development for the customer side of ESS. In the 1970s she started a software quality department, which involved greater attention to written formal specifications, code reviews, and structured developmental processes — software engineering. Leaving Bell in 1989, she worked for Motorola for ten years as a product manager and consultant to industry. She compares Bell’s and Motorola’s treatment of and attitudes to women, relating insightful personal anecdotes. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
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    Oral history interview with Judith Kinsey
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-03) Kinsey, Judith
    Judith Kinsey grew up in southern Minnesota and graduated from Wellesley College in 1962. She applied to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, but also took the IBM Programmer Aptitude Test (PAT) and received a job offer from the Minneapolis branch office. She received extensive corporate training especially in the first years of her work. As a System Engineer she supported IBM sales in the manufacturing area, working out of the Minneapolis and St. Paul branch offices. With the coming of the System/360 she helped install these at customers’ locations by doing assembly-language and other programming. While raising children she was out of the workforce during 1970-76 then returned to IBM as Staff Programmer at Rochester, Minnesota, and then moved into management in 1980. She describes programming assignments, college recruiting, gender relations, and Rochester’s distinctive work culture. During development of the AS/400, she was Technical Assistant to the Directory of the Programming Lab at Rochester. In 1995 she took a position at IBM corporate (in Somers NY) and experienced the re-engineering of IBM under Louis Gerstner. She adds descriptions of efforts to encourage Girl Scouts in computing. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”