short-paper

Understanding practitioners’ strategies to handle test smells: a multi-method study

Authors:

Railana Santana,

Daniel Fernandes,

Denivan Campos,

Larissa Soares,

Ivan MachadoAuthors Info & Claims

SBES '21: Proceedings of the XXXV Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering

Pages 49 - 53

https://doi.org/10.1145/3474624.3474639

Published: 05 October 2021 Publication History

Abstract

Test smells are poor design and implementation choices that can affect the test code’s understanding and maintainability. Recent studies show the industry is not aware of the test smells concept, while software engineers commonly encounter obstacles to maintain test code. This study investigated test creation and maintenance strategies through developers’ perception of eight test smells types. We surveyed 87 software testers and interviewed eight to understand their view on test smells in practice. Our results show that most participants use manual strategies for creating and maintaining test cases. Based on data captured from software testers’ perspectives, this study contributes with possible directions and treatments to analyze test smells, seeking to understand how the test affects and potential solutions for test smells.

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Cited By

Martins LGhaleb TCosta HMachado I(2024)A comprehensive catalog of refactoring strategies to handle test smells in Java-based systemsSoftware Quality Journal10.1007/s11219-024-09663-732:2(641-679)Online publication date: 8-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s11219-024-09663-7
Lima RCosta KSouza JTeixeira LFonseca BD'Amorim MRibeiro MMiranda B(2023)Do you see any problem? On the Developers Perceptions in Test Smells DetectionProceedings of the XXII Brazilian Symposium on Software Quality10.1145/3629479.3629485(21-30)Online publication date: 7-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3629479.3629485
Martins LCampos DSantana RJunior JCosta HMachado I(2023)Hearing the voice of experts: Unveiling Stack Exchange communities’ knowledge of test smells2023 IEEE/ACM 16th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE)10.1109/CHASE58964.2023.00017(80-91)Online publication date: May-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/CHASE58964.2023.00017
Show More Cited By

Understanding practitioners’ strategies to handle test smells: a multi-method study
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software verification and validation
      1. Software defect analysis

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cover image ACM Other conferences

SBES '21: Proceedings of the XXXV Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering

September 2021

473 pages

ISBN:9781450390613

DOI:10.1145/3474624

Copyright © 2021 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Publication History

Published: 05 October 2021

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SBES '21

SBES '21: Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering

September 27 - October 1, 2021

Joinville, Brazil

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Cited By

Martins LGhaleb TCosta HMachado I(2024)A comprehensive catalog of refactoring strategies to handle test smells in Java-based systemsSoftware Quality Journal10.1007/s11219-024-09663-732:2(641-679)Online publication date: 8-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s11219-024-09663-7
Lima RCosta KSouza JTeixeira LFonseca BD'Amorim MRibeiro MMiranda B(2023)Do you see any problem? On the Developers Perceptions in Test Smells DetectionProceedings of the XXII Brazilian Symposium on Software Quality10.1145/3629479.3629485(21-30)Online publication date: 7-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3629479.3629485
Martins LCampos DSantana RJunior JCosta HMachado I(2023)Hearing the voice of experts: Unveiling Stack Exchange communities’ knowledge of test smells2023 IEEE/ACM 16th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE)10.1109/CHASE58964.2023.00017(80-91)Online publication date: May-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/CHASE58964.2023.00017
Martins LCosta HMachado I(2023)On the diffusion of test smells and their relationship with test code quality of Java projectsJournal of Software: Evolution and Process10.1002/smr.253236:4Online publication date: 18-Jan-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1002/smr.2532

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