Specification-centric Reflective Unit Testing

Funded by University College Dublin

Co-PI: Dr. Dan Zimmerman

Developing reliable, defect-free software systems especially critical complex systems such as those for banking, automotive systems, electronic voting, etc. is extremely difficult. Many tools and methods currently exist to assist software engineers in designing, implementing, and testing reliable software systems; however, many of the most effective such tools and methods, in particular those that focus on critical systems engineering, require knowledge of mathematical formalisms that are beyond the training of the typical software engineer.

This project aims to develop prototype next-generation tools for testing and verifying the correctness of software systems that, while taking advantage of the power of formal mathematical methods, can also be easily used by software engineers who have no formal training in these methods; that is, by many thousands of software engineers in Ireland and around the world.

UCD Seed Funding will be used to kick-start collaboration on the development of these tools by facilitating collaborative research in UCD's labs. Empirical results about the tools' design and effectiveness will then be published at well-respected computer science conferences and opportunities for commercialisation will be investigated.