Talk:Mutation testing

External Links removed by the moderators
The wikipedia moderators object to the existence of the external links section, calling the list a place for spam. Do you agree with this assessment? BigChief1988 (talk) 15:23, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
 * As the editor that first removed the information, yes I believe it had become a list for different projects to drive traffic to their websites. I also believe it violates what Wikipedia is and is not, and the external link guidelines. -- VViking Talk Edits 16:05, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Definition of coupling effect
The coupling effect is normally stated along the lines of


 * "test data sets that detect simple types of faults are sensitive enough to detect more complex types of faults."

As both Lipton and Offutt do in the following papers.


 * http://www.cs.gmu.edu/~offutt/rsrch/papers/coupl.pdf
 * https://www.st.cs.uni-saarland.de/edu/recommendation-systems/papers/Hints_on_Test_Data_Selection-1.pdf

A similar definition is used in all other papers I have read.

This is important as it implies that first order mutants may be used in place of real faults.

My edit has been reverted twice now. The article currently asserts that tools must support higher order mutants to "support the coupling effect", while as the offutt paper above explains, the coupling effect in fact implies the opposite - that first order mutations are sufficient.

Could the person reverting supply references that support the current version? Current citation is to Lipton's 1978 paper which is not availble online. The reference I supplied above from the same author (also from 1978) uses the same definition as my edit. Oo d0l0b oo (talk) 21:08, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Rename the article
Wouldn´t be "Mutation testing" a better name for this article? Andreas Kaufmann 19:18, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I renamed the article from 'Mutation analysys' to 'Mutation testing', since it is a more common term for this testing method. Andreas Kaufmann 13:21, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with this: mutation analysis is different to mutation testing. Mutation testing is generating automatic testcases. Mutation analysis is defined in this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.115.3.170 (talk) 15:17, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The term Mutation testing is much more ofen used as a synonym to Mutation analysis and not in a narrow sense "generating automatic testcases". Just as the term software testing is used to specify a sub-filed in software engineering and not just as the process of creating tests for software. Andreas Kaufmann (talk) 09:13, 25 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I this that this should be renamed to Mutation Analysis. It is used as the all-encompassing term by software researchers. See the [title of the workshop on Mutation Analysis](https://sites.google.com/site/mutation2017/). Indeed, mutation testing is really a misnomer since it is not a testing technique. Indeed, the first paper on this subject (http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA076575) uses this term. If you think that mutation testing is a better term, please provide your supporting evidence. Rahul Gopinath June 9 2017

Who watches the watchmen?
"Verifying the tests" is an instance of the deeper philosophical problem named "Who watches the watchmen?". So I added an interdisciplinary link to Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? in the text of the article. --Antonielly (talk) 18:13, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Copyright Infringement/Introduction Copied
The introduction paragraph seems to be more or less copied from here: http://www.mutationtest.net/twiki/bin/view/Resources/MutationAnalysis —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.232.250.50 (talk) 13:51, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for bringing up your concerns with this. Wikipedia takes copyright infringement seriously, and we appreciate being alerted to potential problems. In this case, it seems infringement would be reversed. The external site is dated 3 June 2007, with authorship credited to Giuseppe Di Guglielmo. The text in our article predates that. An editor with that username did contribute a link to the article in May, 2007, here, but there's no reason to presume he had authorization to release the text of the article to that site without permission of previous contributors. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:57, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Reference to original article
I would have expected that the original article by Lipton would be referenced. 80.121.4.71 (talk) 20:06, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Change the start of the article to be more clear what it "is" not what it "does"
The article starts with "Mutation testing is used to ..". What is it in the first place? Is it a tool, or methodology or what? Normally, Wikipedia articles start with "Mutation testing is a ...." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.205.122.208 (talk) 08:57, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Remove the line "Mutation testing is a form of white box testing"
Mutation analysis is not a testing technique in the normal sense. It is used to evaluate the quality of software test suites rather than test programs. Hence, this line is incorrect. Rahul Gopinath June 9 2017 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Blufox (talk • contribs) 23:39, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

External links modified (February 2018)
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