Understandability of General Versus Concrete Test Cases

Abstract: One possibility to automate more of software testing is to have developers write more general test cases. Given a general (parameterized test case), that holds in many situations, software can generate many different test instances and execute them automatically. Thus, even though the developers write fewer and smaller tests they can test more. However, it is not clear what other effects the use of generalized test cases has. One hypothesis is that “More general test cases are harder to understand than concrete ones and thus would lead to overall tests that are harder to understand”. Software understandability can be defined as the system that is written by one person is easy to read and understand by another person easily without any resistance. However, software understandability is hard to measure because understandability depends on the cognitive behavior of human. Software understandability assists in software reusability and software maintainability.