A Test-Driven Approach to Establishing & Managing Agile Product Lines.
Yaser Ghanam, Shelly Park, Frank Maurer · Software Product Lines · 2008
Test Driven Development (TDD) is an agile method that emphasizes writing tests before writing code as a means of 1) assuring the satisfaction of customer requirements, and 2) reinforcing good design habits. While the first objective is usually accomplished by acceptance tests, the second objective is achieved by unit tests. The tests also serve as a multilevel cohesive reference of the system specifications. We propose the use of this referencing mechanism – test artifacts – to establish and manage agile product lines. In this paper, we delve into some of the issues that need to be tackled before test artifacts are relied on as a driving force for reuse in product lines. These issues include establishing a framework for reuse, tests comparability, test traceability, test refactoring and test versioning. We also discuss the suitability of acceptance tests and unit tests as reusable artifacts, and we present a preliminary study to analyze their utilization.