Grant: Alliance Grants

Software plays a central role in supporting mission-critical services, such as payroll services, on-line payment services, and customer ordering processing services. The quality of software is critical and cannot be compromised by their ever-increasing user base and programming complexity. As a common practice, developers need to thoroughly test software before releases. However, post-release defects are inevitable due to the vast diversity in users' execution environments. Defects cause software to misbehave or produce unexpected results. In this proposed research, we aim to develop leading-edge methods and tools to improve testing practices, reduce defect fixing efforts and improve developers' experience in searching for solutions to technical problems. We aim to achieve three themes: (1) Prioritizing testing cases for code changes and the coupled code; (2) Estimating the efforts for fixing buggy code; and (3) Assisting developers in seeking knowledge scattered in multiple resources. This project is developed in the collaboration with IBM Canada. In each theme, the NSERC Alliance activities touch on fundamental concepts and developing functional techniques, while the complementary Mitacs Accelerate internships involve the on-site research method design and implementation in the context of our industry partner. This project will train 2 PhDs and 2 Masters students. The result of our research will directly benefit the software testing practices at IBM Canada and their customers and help Canadian companies maintain a competitive edge in delivering high quality and reliable products.