PhD Student
Stuhlsatzenhaus 5
66123 Saarbrücken (Germany)
European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE)
International Conference on Software Engineering - Companion (ICSE-Companion)
Automation of Software Test (AST)
Security Testing
Software has bugs, and catching bugs can involve lots of effort. This course addresses this problem by automating software testing, specifically by generating tests automatically. Recent years have seen the development of novel techniques that lead to dramatic improvements in test generation and software testing. In this course, we explore these techniques – in theory and in code.
Every week, you will be provided with Jupyter Notebooks that teach a particular topic and illustrate it using plenty of runnable Python code. These notebooks come from The Fuzzing Book, a textbook on how to generate software tests written by yours truly.
In the notebook, you can edit the code as you like, run your own experiments, and re-use and extend the code to your liking. Your task will be to use these techniques (and their code) to build a series of fuzzers (i.e. test generators) that find bugs in a number of challenging settings.
This course uses the "inverted classroom" principle – you learn at home, and discuss issues with your instructor. In our weekly meeting, we use the gathering in the lecture hall to
These meetings come with live coding, so we can explore ideas right on the go.
During this course, you apply the techniques learned in weekly exercises and two projects which form your coursework. Projects are graded for effectiveness, efficiency, elegance, and creativity. Projects offer special challenges which allow you to gain bonus points.
Every week, you get a simple exercise assignment covering the material of the last lecture. Performance in these exercises will make 33% of the final grade. Note that there is no final exam.
Advanced programming skills (such as obtained after two years of successfully studying CS) are required. Knowledge in Python is useful, but can easily be acquired along the course.
To pass this course, you need to have
Your final grade is determined by 66% projects and 33% exercises (see above).
The course is organized as "inverted classroom": Every week, we discuss a chapter of the book, which will be supplied with an introduction video; we meet once a week to discuss the material, the associated exercises, and the ongoing projects.
The lecture plan may be subject to changes; these will be announced in time.