Defect Prediction: Accomplishments and Future Challenges
As software systems play an increasingly important role in our lives, their complexity continues to increase. The increased complexity of software systems makes the assurance of their quality very difficult. Therefore, a significant amount of recent research focuses on the prioritization of software quality assurance efforts. One line of work that has been receiving an increasing amount of attention for over 40 years is software defect prediction, where predictions are made to determine where future defects might appear. Since then, there have been many studies and many accomplishments in the area of software defect prediction. At the same time, there remain many challenges that face that field of software defect prediction. The paper aims to accomplish four things. First, we provide a brief overview of software defect prediction and its various components. Second, we revisit the challenges of software prediction models as they were seen in the year 2000, in order to reflect on our accomplishments since then. Third, we highlight our accomplishments and current trends, as well as, discuss the game changers that had a significant impact on software defect prediction. Fourth, we highlight some key challenges that lie ahead in the near (and not so near) future in order for us as a research community to tackle these future challenges.
2016 IEEE 23rd International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution, and Reengineering (SANER)