4 ms·

What does research in this field look like?

stephendause 3y ago
So I have not done research any software engineering field and have not read all that much either. One example that comes to mind from one of my courses that I took in software engineering is research around mutation-based testing. That form of testing is where you generate random variants of your test by doing things like deleting a statement, adding a statement, changing a less than sign to a greater than sign, etc. Then you check to see that at least one of your tests fails for each variant. If it does not, you either add a test or mark that variant as being effectively the same program. I forget what the term is for it. At any rate, I think there is still research being done on this topic, for example how to effectively generate programs that do not generate as many functionally identical programs. Software testing in general is a big part of software engineering, and I think there is still a fair amount of research that could be done about it. In my opinion, the intersection of cognitive psychology and software engineering is also ripe for a lot of research. I feel like we as software engineers have a lot of intuitions about how to be productive, but I would love to see various things that could indicate productivity measured in a controlled lab setting.
- PeterisP 3y ago
  It looks like you're talking about fuzzing, which has applications in both reliability and security testing.
  - stephendause 3y ago
    No, mutation-based testing is different. Fuzzing varies the input to the program. Mutation testing varies the program itself as a means of testing the quality of the tests. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_testing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_testing
titzer 3y ago
Testing, fuzzing, and verification are all pretty hot SE topics now, at least in my department at CMU. All of those have some element of program analysis, both static and dynamic, so there's potentially deep PL stuff, which is core CS. There's aspects to SE that are not just that, of course, which are studying social processes, management styles and practices, software architectures, design patterns, API design, etc.
gmadsen 3y ago
I would assume something like this? https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/79551 https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/79551
doubloon 3y ago
i feel like the Toyota Production System could be applied, I know they used some of it at Amazon but in general I don't hear much about it in 'software spaces'. It's been studied a huge amount in quality theory but... seems like theres not a lot of crossover between manufacturing and software. like the idea of a Poke Yoke could cover all manner of automated analysis software tools. from the -Wall in gcc to, Rust borrow checker, basically just Poke Yoke.

So I have not done research any software engineering field and have not read all that much either. One example that comes to mind from one of my courses that I took in software engineering is research around mutation-based testing. That form of testing is where you generate random variants of your test by doing things like deleting a statement, adding a statement, changing a less than sign to a greater than sign, etc. Then you check to see that at least one of your tests fails for each variant. If it does not, you either add a test or mark that variant as being effectively the same program. I forget what the term is for it. At any rate, I think there is still research being done on this topic, for example how to effectively generate programs that do not generate as many functionally identical programs. Software testing in general is a big part of software engineering, and I think there is still a fair amount of research that could be done about it. In my opinion, the intersection of cognitive psychology and software engineering is also ripe for a lot of research. I feel like we as software engineers have a lot of intuitions about how to be productive, but I would love to see various things that could indicate productivity measured in a controlled lab setting.

PeterisP 3y ago
It looks like you're talking about fuzzing, which has applications in both reliability and security testing.
- stephendause 3y ago
  No, mutation-based testing is different. Fuzzing varies the input to the program. Mutation testing varies the program itself as a means of testing the quality of the tests. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_testing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_testing

titzer 3y ago

Testing, fuzzing, and verification are all pretty hot SE topics now, at least in my department at CMU. All of those have some element of program analysis, both static and dynamic, so there's potentially deep PL stuff, which is core CS. There's aspects to SE that are not just that, of course, which are studying social processes, management styles and practices, software architectures, design patterns, API design, etc.

gmadsen 3y ago

I would assume something like this? https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/79551 https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/79551

doubloon 3y ago

i feel like the Toyota Production System could be applied, I know they used some of it at Amazon but in general I don't hear much about it in 'software spaces'. It's been studied a huge amount in quality theory but... seems like theres not a lot of crossover between manufacturing and software. like the idea of a Poke Yoke could cover all manner of automated analysis software tools. from the -Wall in gcc to, Rust borrow checker, basically just Poke Yoke.