Other Developments: Open Problems

Abstract

The scope of applicability of probabilistic ideas to address problems in software engineering is constantly expanding. Consequently, what has been covered is just a sample of the ultimate possibilities. Indeed, even now, there are several topics that are currently being researched that have not been highlighted by us. Some of these are: the use of stochastic process models (such as birth and death processes) for describing the evolution and maintenance of software, software certification and insurability, the incorporation of an operational profile for reliability assessment, embedding the CMM of Chapter 5 into a decision-theoretic framework, statistical aspects of software testing and using experimental designs for the testing of software, reliability assessment when testing reveals no failures, the integration of module and system testing, and so on. The aim of this chapter is to provide a bird’s-eye view of some of these topics, and to put forth some open problems that they pose. It is hoped that this will inspire other researchers to pursue each topic in more detail than what we report. With this in mind, we have selected three topics for further discussion: dynamic modeling and the operational profile, statistical aspects of software testing and experimental designs for developing software testing strategies, and the integration of module and system performance.KeywordsOrthogonal ArrayRandom TestingSoftware TestingFractional Factorial DesignOperational ProfileThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.