A Literature Review on the Challenges of Applying Test-Driven Development in Software Engineering
Open accessAbstract
Due to the ongoing trend of digitalization, the importance of software for today’s society is continuously increasing. Naturally, there is also a huge interest in improving its quality, which led to a highly active research community dedicated to this aim. Consequently, a plethora of propositions, tools, and methods emerged from the corresponding efforts. One of the approaches that have become highly prominent is the concept of test-driven development (TDD) that increases the quality of created software by restructuring the development process. However, such a big change to the followed procedures is usually also accompanied by major challenges that pose a risk for the achievement of the set targets. In order to find ways to overcome them, or at least to mitigate their impact, it is necessary to identify them and to subsequently raise awareness. Furthermore, since the effect of TDD on productivity and quality is already extensively researched, this work focuses only on issues besides these aspects. For this purpose, a literature review is presented that focuses on the challenges of TDD. In doing so, challenges that can be attributed to the three categories of people, software, and process are identified and potential avenues for future research are discussed.
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A 100% coverage indicates that the production code has been thoroughly tested, but this metric cannot ensure that the tests have been carried out correctly or that the system is free of defects.
“A 100% coverage indicates that the production code has been thoroughly tested, but this metric cannot ensure that the tests have been carried out correctly or that the system is free of defects [24].”
From Test Driven Development and Its Impact on Program Design and Software Quality: A Systematic Literature Review (2023) · cites this paper as [24]
The Background section says greater test coverage improves the likelihood of detecting errors, and the Discussion section warns that tests may provide confidence rather than actively look for issues. These passages support the caution that coverage alone is not proof of effective testing, but the paper does not address 100% coverage specifically or say that it indicates production code has been thoroughly tested. The indexed copy provides no page numbers for these passages. (LLM, conf=0.76)
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- Authors
- Staegemann, D., Volk, M., Perera, M., Haertel, C., Pohl, M., Daase, C., & Turowski, K.
- Affiliations
- Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg (DE)
- ORCID
- Venue
- Complex Systems Informatics and Modeling Quarterly
- Publisher
- Riga Technical University
- Published
- 2022-07-29
- Issue
- 31
- Pages
- 18-28
- ISSN
- 2255-9922 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4289885683
- Cited by
- 10
- References
- 32
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 4
- FWCI
- 2.23
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Locations
- Complex Systems Informatics and Modeling Quarterly (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- ICT Role for Next Generation Universitie (Riga Technical University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Software Engineering Techniques and Practices
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Software › Software Testing and Debugging Techniques
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Software Engineering Research
- Keywords
- test-driven development, software quality, software development process, software engineering practices, software productivity
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