Shaken, Not Stirred

How Developers Like Their Amplified Tests

Journal article (2024)

Authors

C.E. Brandt Software Engineering - EEMCS
Ali Khatami Software Engineering - EEMCS
Mairieli Wessel Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
A.E. Zaidman Software Technology
Research Group
Software Engineering (EEMCS) (TU Delft)
Software testing Automatic test generation Developer-centric test amplification
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Published Date

2024

Language

English

Reuse Rights

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Faculty

Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Department

Software Technology

Research Group

Software Engineering

Abstract

Test amplification makes systematic changes to existing, manually written tests to provide tests complementary to an automated test suite. We consider developer-centric test amplification, where the developer explores, judges and edits the amplified tests before adding them to their maintained test suite. However, it is as yet unclear which kind of selection and editing steps developers take before including an amplified test into the test suite. In this paper we conduct an open source contribution study, amplifying tests of open source Java projects from GitHub. We report which deficiencies we observe in the amplified tests while manually filtering and editing them to open 39 pull requests with amplified tests. We present a detailed analysis of the maintainer's feedback regarding proposed changes, requested information, and expressed judgment. Our observations provide a basis for practitioners to take an informed decision on whether to adopt developer-centric test amplification. As several of the edits we observe are based on the developer's understanding of the amplified test, we conjecture that developer-centric test amplification should invest in supporting the developer to understand the amplified tests.