A longitudinal cohort study on the retainment of test-driven development

Davide Fucci; Simone Romano; Maria Teresa Baldassarre; Danilo Caivano; Giuseppe Scanniello; Burak Turhan; Natalia Juristo

doi:10.1145/3239235.3240502

A longitudinal cohort study on the retainment of test-driven development

Davide Fucci
, Simone Romano
, Maria Teresa Baldassarre
, Danilo Caivano
, Giuseppe Scanniello
, Burak Turhan
, Natalia Juristo

Department of Software Systems & Cybersecurity

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference Paper › Research › peer-review

18 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Background: Test-Driven Development (TDD) is an agile software development practice, which is claimed to boost both external quality of software products and developers' productivity. Aims: We want to study: (i) the TDD effects on the external quality of software products as well as the developers' productivity; and (ii) the retainment of TDD over a period of five months. Method: We conducted a (quantitative) longitudinal cohort study with 30 third-year undergraduate students in Computer Science at the University of Bari in Italy. Results: The use of TDD has a statistically significant effect neither on the external quality of software products nor on the developers' productivity. However, we observed that participants using TDD produced significantly more tests than those applying a non-TDD development process, and that the retainment of TDD is particularly noticeable in the amount of tests written. Conclusions: Our results should encourage software companies to adopt TDD because who practices TDD tends to write more tests - -having more tests can come in handy when testing software systems or localizing faults - -and it seems that novice developers retain TDD.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings of the 12th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, ESEM 2018
Subtitle of host publication	October 11-12, 2018, Oulu, Finland
Editors	Daniel Méndez, Audris Mockus
Place of Publication	New York NY USA
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Number of pages	10
ISBN (Electronic)	9781450358231
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3239235.3240502
Publication status	Published - 2018
Event	International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement 2018 - Oulu, Finland Duration: 11 Oct 2018 → 12 Oct 2018 Conference number: 12th http://eseiw2018.wixsite.com/esem2018

Conference

Conference	International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement 2018
Abbreviated title	ESEM 2018
Country/Territory	Finland
City	Oulu
Period	11/10/18 → 12/10/18
Internet address	http://eseiw2018.wixsite.com/esem2018

Keywords

Longitudinal cohort study
Test-driven development

Access to Document

10.1145/3239235.3240502

Cite this

Fucci, D., Romano, S., Baldassarre, M. T., Caivano, D., Scanniello, G., Turhan, B., & Juristo, N. (2018). A longitudinal cohort study on the retainment of test-driven development. In D. Méndez, & A. Mockus (Eds.), Proceedings of the 12th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, ESEM 2018: October 11-12, 2018, Oulu, Finland Article 18 Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). https://doi.org/10.1145/3239235.3240502

Fucci, Davide ; Romano, Simone ; Baldassarre, Maria Teresa et al. / A longitudinal cohort study on the retainment of test-driven development. Proceedings of the 12th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, ESEM 2018: October 11-12, 2018, Oulu, Finland. editor / Daniel Méndez ; Audris Mockus. New York NY USA : Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2018.

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abstract = "Background: Test-Driven Development (TDD) is an agile software development practice, which is claimed to boost both external quality of software products and developers' productivity. Aims: We want to study: (i) the TDD effects on the external quality of software products as well as the developers' productivity; and (ii) the retainment of TDD over a period of five months. Method: We conducted a (quantitative) longitudinal cohort study with 30 third-year undergraduate students in Computer Science at the University of Bari in Italy. Results: The use of TDD has a statistically significant effect neither on the external quality of software products nor on the developers' productivity. However, we observed that participants using TDD produced significantly more tests than those applying a non-TDD development process, and that the retainment of TDD is particularly noticeable in the amount of tests written. Conclusions: Our results should encourage software companies to adopt TDD because who practices TDD tends to write more tests - -having more tests can come in handy when testing software systems or localizing faults - -and it seems that novice developers retain TDD.",

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Fucci, D, Romano, S, Baldassarre, MT, Caivano, D, Scanniello, G, Turhan, B & Juristo, N 2018, A longitudinal cohort study on the retainment of test-driven development. in D Méndez & A Mockus (eds), Proceedings of the 12th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, ESEM 2018: October 11-12, 2018, Oulu, Finland., 18, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), New York NY USA , International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement 2018, Oulu, Finland, 11/10/18. https://doi.org/10.1145/3239235.3240502

A longitudinal cohort study on the retainment of test-driven development. / Fucci, Davide; Romano, Simone; Baldassarre, Maria Teresa et al.
Proceedings of the 12th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, ESEM 2018: October 11-12, 2018, Oulu, Finland. ed. / Daniel Méndez; Audris Mockus. New York NY USA : Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2018. 18.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference Paper › Research › peer-review

TY - GEN

T1 - A longitudinal cohort study on the retainment of test-driven development

AU - Fucci, Davide

AU - Romano, Simone

AU - Baldassarre, Maria Teresa

AU - Caivano, Danilo

AU - Scanniello, Giuseppe

AU - Turhan, Burak

AU - Juristo, Natalia

N1 - Conference code: 12th

PY - 2018

Y1 - 2018

N2 - Background: Test-Driven Development (TDD) is an agile software development practice, which is claimed to boost both external quality of software products and developers' productivity. Aims: We want to study: (i) the TDD effects on the external quality of software products as well as the developers' productivity; and (ii) the retainment of TDD over a period of five months. Method: We conducted a (quantitative) longitudinal cohort study with 30 third-year undergraduate students in Computer Science at the University of Bari in Italy. Results: The use of TDD has a statistically significant effect neither on the external quality of software products nor on the developers' productivity. However, we observed that participants using TDD produced significantly more tests than those applying a non-TDD development process, and that the retainment of TDD is particularly noticeable in the amount of tests written. Conclusions: Our results should encourage software companies to adopt TDD because who practices TDD tends to write more tests - -having more tests can come in handy when testing software systems or localizing faults - -and it seems that novice developers retain TDD.

AB - Background: Test-Driven Development (TDD) is an agile software development practice, which is claimed to boost both external quality of software products and developers' productivity. Aims: We want to study: (i) the TDD effects on the external quality of software products as well as the developers' productivity; and (ii) the retainment of TDD over a period of five months. Method: We conducted a (quantitative) longitudinal cohort study with 30 third-year undergraduate students in Computer Science at the University of Bari in Italy. Results: The use of TDD has a statistically significant effect neither on the external quality of software products nor on the developers' productivity. However, we observed that participants using TDD produced significantly more tests than those applying a non-TDD development process, and that the retainment of TDD is particularly noticeable in the amount of tests written. Conclusions: Our results should encourage software companies to adopt TDD because who practices TDD tends to write more tests - -having more tests can come in handy when testing software systems or localizing faults - -and it seems that novice developers retain TDD.

KW - Longitudinal cohort study

KW - Test-driven development

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85061505959

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DO - 10.1145/3239235.3240502

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AN - SCOPUS:85061505959

BT - Proceedings of the 12th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, ESEM 2018

A2 - Méndez, Daniel

A2 - Mockus, Audris

PB - Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

CY - New York NY USA

T2 - International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement 2018

Y2 - 11 October 2018 through 12 October 2018

ER -

Fucci D, Romano S, Baldassarre MT, Caivano D, Scanniello G, Turhan B et al. A longitudinal cohort study on the retainment of test-driven development. In Méndez D, Mockus A, editors, Proceedings of the 12th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, ESEM 2018: October 11-12, 2018, Oulu, Finland. New York NY USA : Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). 2018. 18 doi: 10.1145/3239235.3240502

A longitudinal cohort study on the retainment of test-driven development

Abstract

Conference

Keywords

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Best Paper Candidate

Open Data Recognition Award

Cite this

A longitudinal cohort study on the retainment of test-driven development

Abstract

Conference

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Prizes

Best Paper Candidate

Open Data Recognition Award

Cite this