Components have Test Buddies

Abstract

Most large software systems are architected as component-based systems. In such systems, components are developed and tested separately. As components cooperate for providing services, testing of a component also reveals defects in other components. In this paper we study the role testing of other components plays in finding defects in a component by analyzing defect data of an earlier version of Windows. Our analysis shows that testing of other components often is the largest source of finding defects in a component. The analysis also shows that though many components reveal defects in a component, often a small set of components - the Test Buddies - exists whose testing reveals the vast majority of the defects found by testing other components. The Test Buddies of a component are those with a heavy interaction with the component and represent the high priority customers for testing. The Test Buddy information for a system can be determined by the test data of an earlier release, and then can be used in different ways to improve the testing. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.