CS4472A : Specification, Testing and Quality

Assurance Instructor: Shaimaa Ali

What is this course all about

• Computers and software systems are becoming ubiquitous in modern society.

• Worldwide users rely on individual and interconnected computers to fulfill their needs for – information processing, – storage, – search, – and retrieval.

• All these needs are met with the support of the underlying software.

• This reliance requires a quality the software

What is this course all about

• This high quality need to be satisfied through various Quality Assurance activities

• Claims for high quality need to be supported by evidence based on concrete measurements and analyses.

Textbook

Software Quality Engineering: Testing, Quality Assurance, and Quantifiable Improvement

Jeff Tian

ISBN: 978-0-471-71345-6February 2005, ©2005,

Wiley-IEEE Computer Society Press

Quality expectations

Our (as developers) objective is to deliver software system that...

• does what it is supposed to do – needs to be “validated“

• does the things correctly– needs to be “verified“

• show/demonstrate/prove it – modeling/analysis needed

Meeting Quality Expectations

• Difficulties in achieving good quality:– size: MLOC products common– complexity– environmental stress/constraints– flexibility/adaptability expected

• Other difficulties/factors:– product type– cost and market conditions– Others .. (discussed in Part III of the book)

• No silver bullet", but...– SQE (software quality engineering) helps

Contents

• Part I– Overview and basics

• Part II– Testing– Perhaps the most important QA

mechanism

Contents

• Part III– Other Alternatives for QA

• defect prevention• inspection, review, analysis• formal verification• defect containment

– Comparison of different alternatives, including testing.

• Part IV– Analysis and improvement

• overall mechanism • measurements/models

Background

• Math/statistics pre-requisite:– used in modeling/analysis.– discrete math; logic, graph, etc.– probability and statistics

Background

• Background knowledge in CS/SE:– computer systems and programming• Java, C or C++

– fundamentals of computing– general SE knowledge and experience• CS3307 is prerequisite

Marking scheme

• 40% assignments – 1 assignment per part– 10% each

• 10% in-class and online participation– In-class assessment and participation

activities– Online activities (on course’s website)– Some of the in-class activities will be posted

online so that students can catch up.

Marking scheme

• 20% mid-term exam – tentatively Oct. 28th

– Covering parts I and II

• 30% final exam

In class activity #1(take 5 to 10 mins to answer these questions)

• Your experience as a developer–What programming experience do you

have? (e.g. course project, internship ... Etc.)

–What language did you use?–What level of quality you think it had?–How did you assure it’s quality?

• Your experience as a customer–What software do you use and think it is

a good software?–Why do you think it’s good? • Looks good, fast, accurate … etc.

–How did you measure it’s goodness?– Can you compare it to other similar

software?

In class activity #2(take 5 to 10 mins to answer these questions)

• Your experience in management– Did you work in a team for developing a

software before? What was it?–What was your role in the team?–Was there any team member responsible

for QA?–How did you divide QA tasks amongst

team members?–What can you do to enhance

management of your team with regards to QA activities?

In class activity #3(take 5 to 10 mins to answer these questions)

Your expectations?

What do you expect to learn in this course?