Does Test-Driven Development Really Improve Software Design Quality?

Support for test-driven development [TDD] is growing in many development contexts beyond its common association with extreme programming. By focusing on how TDD influences design characteristics, we hope to raise awareness of TDD as a design approach and assist others in decisions on whether and how...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE software 2008-03, Vol.25 (2), p.77-84
Main Authors: Janzen, D.S., Saiedian, H.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accessories
Applied sciences
Automatic testing
Automation
Case studies
Cohesion
Computer programming
Computer programs
Computer science
control theory
systems
Exact sciences and technology
Experiments
Focusing
Java
Joining
Open source software
Product design
Productivity
Programmers
Programming
Programming profession
Propulsion
quality analysis
quality metrics
Software
software architecture
Software design
Software development
Software engineering
Software quality
Software testing
Systems development
TDD
Teams
test design
test-driven development
Testing
Writing
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Support for test-driven development [TDD] is growing in many development contexts beyond its common association with extreme programming. By focusing on how TDD influences design characteristics, we hope to raise awareness of TDD as a design approach and assist others in decisions on whether and how to adopt TDD. Our results indicate that test-first programmers are more likely to write software in more and smaller units that are less complex and more highly tested. We weren't able to confirm claims that TDD improves cohesion while lowering coupling, but we anticipate ways to clarify the questions these design characteristics raised. In particular, we're working to eliminate the confounding factor of accessor usage in the cohesion metrics.
ISSN:0740-7459
1937-4194
DOI:10.1109/MS.2008.34