Software Testing Research: Achievements, Challenges, Dreams

Software engineering comprehends several disciplines devoted to prevent and remedy malfunctions and to warrant adequate behaviour. Testing, the subject of this paper, is a widespread validation approach in industry, but it is still largely ad hoc, expensive, and unpredictably effective. Indeed, software testing is a broad term encompassing a variety of activities along the development cycle and beyond, aimed at different goals. Hence, software testing research faces a collection of challenges. A consistent roadmap of the most relevant challenges to be addressed is here proposed. In it, the starting point is constituted by some important past achievements, while the destination consists of four identified goals…