A Value-Based Framework for Software Evolutionary Testing

The fundamental objective in value-based software engineering is to integrate consistent stakeholder value propositions into the full extent of software engineering principles and practices so as to increase the value for software assets. In such a value-based setting, artifacts in software development such as requirement specifications, use cases, test cases, or defects, are not treated as equally important during the development process. Instead, they will be differentiated according to how much they are contributing, directly or indirectly, to the stakeholder value propositions. The higher the contributions, the more important the artifacts become. In turn, development activities involving more important artifacts should be given higher priorities and greater considerations in the development process. In this paper, a value-based framework is proposed for carrying out software evolutionary testing with a focus on test data generation through genetic algorithms. The proposed framework incorporates general principles in value-based software testing and makes it possible to prioritize testing decisions that are rooted in the stakeholder value propositions. It allows for a cost-effective way to fulfill most valuable testing objectives first and a graceful degradation when planned testing process has to be shortened.