RUI:  Program Testing Theory of Probable Correctness
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{'SignBlockName': 'John D. Gannon', 'PO_EMAI': None, 'PO_PHON': None}
A theory of "probable correctness" is proposed to assess the                    trustworthiness of software through testing.  Most current testing              methods are intended for debugging, to find failures and connect them           to program faults for repair.  When these methods no longer expose              errors, no analysis has been done to find the confidence that may be            placed in the software.  (Preliminary results here are that this                confidence should be low.)  The application of conventional decision            theory to tests as program samples is suspect because its assumptions           concerning independence and distribution do not hold.  Thus there is no         valid theoretical basis for predicting probable software quality from           test results.  As software becomes ever more complex, and its                   applications more critical, the need for a sound evaluation metric              grows.                                                                                                                                                          It is crucial that a theory of testing for trustworthiness be                   plausible, which requires an analysis of the foundations of program             sampling.  The flaws in current theory result from sampling the wrong           space: faults are distributed, not over the input domain, but over the          program's text and variable state space.  Preliminary results using a           probabilistic model that arose in learning theory are promising.  It is         possible to analyze practical testing methods, and to understand why            they fail.  Continued development of the theory will yield quantitative         comparison between methods, and can be used to compare programs                 according to their "testability."
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[{'Code': '2880', 'Text': 'SOFTWARE ENGINEERING AND LANGU'}, {'Code': '9120', 'Text': 'CROSS-DIRECTORATE PROGRAMS'}]
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