Gregory M. Kapfhammer

Computer Science 580, Junior Seminar, Spring 2009

The Junior Seminar focuses on research methods in computer science. A module of the course taught by Gregory M. Kapfhammer examines topics such as software engineering, software testing and analysis, and computer systems. For more information about these areas please view my Research page.

Software Testing and Analysis

1. Please review the Research, All Research Deliverables, and Summary of Research Interests pages for more details about existing research projects involving faculty and students in the Department of Computer Science at Allegheny College. You may decide to investigate a Software Testing Tutorial that includes a simple program and the test suite for the program that is written in the JUnit testing framework.

   
   

2. The following five papers have been selected:
   • (3.1) James A. Jones and Mary Jean Harrold. Empirical evaluation of the tarantula automatic fault-localization technique. Proceedings of the 20th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering.

     
     

   • (3.2) Yanbing Yu, James A. Jones, and Mary Jean Harrold. An empirical study of the effects of test-suite reduction on fault localization. Proceedings of the 30th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering.

     
     

   • (3.3) Adam M. Smith and Gregory M. Kapfhammer. An empirical study of incorporating cost into test suite reduction and prioritization. Proceedings of the 24th ACM SIGAPP Symposium on Applied Computing, Software Engineering Track.

     
     

   • (3.4) Richard S. Barr, Bruce L. Golden, James P. Kelly, Mauricio G. C. Resende, and William R. Stewart Jr. Designing and reporting on computational experiments with heuristic methods. Journal of Heuristics.

     
     

   • (3.5) Stephen M. Blackburn, Kathryn S. McKinley, Robin Garner, Chris Hoffmann, Asjad M. Khan, Rotem Bentzur, Amer Diwan, Daniel Feinberg, Daniel Frampton, Samuel Z. Guyer, Martin Hirzel, Antony Hosking, Maria Jump, Han Lee, J. Eliot B. Moss, Aashish Phansalkar, Darko Stefanovik, Thomas VanDrunen, Daniel von Dincklage, Ben Wiedermann. Wake up and smell the coffee: evaluation methodology for the 21st century. Communications of the ACM.

3. Paper Reading Assignments:
   • 3.1: Entire Paper (study Figure 1, Tables 1 and 2, and Figure 2)
   • 3.2: Entire Paper (study Tables 3 and 4 and Figures 2 and 3)
   • 3.3: Entire Paper (study Table 1, Figures 3 through 6, and Table 4)
   • 3.4: Entire Paper Optional (consider pages 9-15, 18-19, 21, 23, and 26).
   • 3.5: Entire Paper Optional (consider pages 83-84 and 87 and Figure 2)
4. Course Schedule:
   • Tuesday, March 24, 2009:
     • Module introduction and instructor presentation.
   • Thursday, March 26, 2009:
     • Quiz on assigned reading materials
     • Student presentation of research papers
     • Deliverables: Presentation slides (10 to 15 minutes for each student) and one page written summary
   • Friday, March 27, 2009:
     • Brainstorming session for research ideas
     • Tutorials and examples concerning algorithms, data analysis, and visualization
   • Tuesday, March 31, 2009:
     • Workshop on future research ideas
     • Deliverables: Presentations slides (10 minutes for each student) and/or one page written proposal overview - Draft version for either item
   • Thursday, April 2, 2009:
     • Final Presentation of research ideas
     • Deliverables: Presentation slides (10 to 15 minutes for each student) and one page written proposal overview - Final version for both items
   • Friday, April 3, 2009:
     • Demonstration of software tools for testing and data analysis
     • Evaluation of proposal drafts for your seminar portfolio
     • Deliverable(s): Strong draft of at least one of the required proposals
   • Note: Your deliverables for the workshop on future research ideas should refer to at least one additional research paper.
   • Note: Each student should be prepared to turn in their deliverables at the start of each class session.
5. Research and Writing Resources:
   • Phil Koopman, How to Write an Abstract

   • Brian A. Malloy, The Craft of Writing a Research Paper

   • Mary-Claire van Leunen and Richard Lipton, How to Have Your Abstract Rejected

   • William Pugh, Advice to Authors of Extended Abstracts

   • Jennifer Widom, Tips for Writing Technical Papers

   • David Patterson, Writing Advice

   • NAS/NAE, On Being a Scientist