Studying Behavior to Unlock the Truth about Quality

Historical field data concerning operational behavior is a straightforward way for determining how well a system was manufactured and maintained and is also a key parameter in rating a program's quality. Information systems that have performed reliably for many years clearly deserve to be labeled as being of "high quality." For new systems (that have not been deployed), however, operational field data will not be available. But even so, the desire to know a system's quality prior to deployment still persists. This paper highlights several promising testing-related technologies that can both help us to determine how well a system will behave before it is deployed as well as to limit the degree to which a program can exhibit undesirable behavior. Together, these technologies provide new capabilities in the war to achieve better quality software. 1 Introduction Software practitioners have always been faced with the dilemma of accurately determining software quality. Two broad approaches ..