A quantitative comparison of test-first and test-last code in an industrial project

Burak Turhan; Ayse Bener; Pasi Kuvaja; Markku Oivo

doi:10.1007/978-3-642-13054-0_24

A quantitative comparison of test-first and test-last code in an industrial project

Burak Turhan, Ayse Bener, Pasi Kuvaja, Markku Oivo

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

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper presents a comparison of test-first and test-last development approaches on a customer account management software of a telecommunication company. While the management had plans for initiating a process that enforces test-first development over test-last, they also had concerns about the tradeoffs. Therefore, an exploratory case study with quantitative analysis is carried out on a pilot project where the code metrics and estimated manual inspection efforts of both approaches are compared. Our results indicate no statistical difference between the two approaches in terms of design (CK) metrics. On the other hand, we observe that test-last development yields significantly simpler code in terms of cyclomatic complexity and less (though not significant) manual inspection effort. Hence, our initial results indicate no superiority of test-first over test-last development in the described industrial context.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming - 11th International Conference, XP 2010, Proceedings
Publisher	Springer
Pages	232-237
Number of pages	6
ISBN (Print)	9783642130533
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-13054-0_24
Publication status	Published - 1 Jan 2010
Externally published	Yes
Event	International Conference on Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming 2010 - Trondheim, Norway Duration: 1 Jun 2010 → 4 Jun 2010 Conference number: 11th http://xp2010.org/

Publication series

Name	Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing
Volume	48 LNBIP
ISSN (Print)	1865-1348

Conference

Conference	International Conference on Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming 2010
Abbreviated title	XP 2010
Country/Territory	Norway
City	Trondheim
Period	1/06/10 → 4/06/10
Internet address	http://xp2010.org/

Keywords

Case study
Code metrics
Test first
Test last

Access to Document

10.1007/978-3-642-13054-0_24

Cite this

Turhan, B., Bener, A., Kuvaja, P., & Oivo, M. (2010). A quantitative comparison of test-first and test-last code in an industrial project. In Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming - 11th International Conference, XP 2010, Proceedings (pp. 232-237). (Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing; Vol. 48 LNBIP). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-13054-0_24

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abstract = "This paper presents a comparison of test-first and test-last development approaches on a customer account management software of a telecommunication company. While the management had plans for initiating a process that enforces test-first development over test-last, they also had concerns about the tradeoffs. Therefore, an exploratory case study with quantitative analysis is carried out on a pilot project where the code metrics and estimated manual inspection efforts of both approaches are compared. Our results indicate no statistical difference between the two approaches in terms of design (CK) metrics. On the other hand, we observe that test-last development yields significantly simpler code in terms of cyclomatic complexity and less (though not significant) manual inspection effort. Hence, our initial results indicate no superiority of test-first over test-last development in the described industrial context.",

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Turhan, B, Bener, A, Kuvaja, P & Oivo, M 2010, A quantitative comparison of test-first and test-last code in an industrial project. in Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming - 11th International Conference, XP 2010, Proceedings. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol. 48 LNBIP, Springer, pp. 232-237, International Conference on Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming 2010, Trondheim, Norway, 1/06/10. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-13054-0_24

A quantitative comparison of test-first and test-last code in an industrial project. / Turhan, Burak; Bener, Ayse; Kuvaja, Pasi et al.
Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming - 11th International Conference, XP 2010, Proceedings. Springer, 2010. p. 232-237 (Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing; Vol. 48 LNBIP).

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

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AB - This paper presents a comparison of test-first and test-last development approaches on a customer account management software of a telecommunication company. While the management had plans for initiating a process that enforces test-first development over test-last, they also had concerns about the tradeoffs. Therefore, an exploratory case study with quantitative analysis is carried out on a pilot project where the code metrics and estimated manual inspection efforts of both approaches are compared. Our results indicate no statistical difference between the two approaches in terms of design (CK) metrics. On the other hand, we observe that test-last development yields significantly simpler code in terms of cyclomatic complexity and less (though not significant) manual inspection effort. Hence, our initial results indicate no superiority of test-first over test-last development in the described industrial context.

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A quantitative comparison of test-first and test-last code in an industrial project

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Keywords

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