Testing Software’s Goal: Make Bugs Go Splat - Software Development Times On The Web

Testing Software’s Goal: Make Bugs Go Splat
Start-up Solidware enters market with intelligence-driven automation
By David Rubinstein

August 15, 2005 — Software is getting more complex. Service-oriented applications pull together modules that weren’t necessarily meant to be joined. Multithreaded environments can be hazardous to the health of code.

Testing this code earlier in the development phase to eliminate defects via automation and the reduction of risk is the goal of Solidware, which last month brought out the first phase of Splat, its intelligence-driven, automated code visualization and analysis framework.

“It’s more of an engineering approach than a process approach,” said Sue Kunz, co-founder and CEO of the Boulder, Colo.-based start-up. “How do you amass knowledge and use it to do test automation? We want to take the manual piece [of testing] out wherever possible.”

Splat displays the relationship of code modules and performs failure mode analysis, including risk assessment, security and APIs, she said. The company expects to launch different failure modes over time to plug into the Splat framework. By providing a visualization of the application structure, developers can see code attributes, and can assess the quality of third-party software that has been integrated into the production environment.

Aiming at Developers
The initial release, for C language code running on Windows platforms, targets sustaining QA, Kunz said, but the company wants Splat to land squarely amid developers. “The goal is to tie into code management systems and plug into existing IDEs, and drive analysis as the code is being written.” Ultimately, she said, there will be three views, for developers, QA and project managers. Kunz said it could take until mid-2006 for the full implementation to be completed and released.

Hoping to change the way people in those roles navigate through the codebase, Splat will implement a filtering mechanism that allows users to pick an attribute, for example, and home in on an area of interest, such as fewest comments or most bugs, Kunz said. Slider bars then abstract away areas users don’t want to view at that time, she added.

Kunz estimated the market for automated testing tools is in the US$6 billion to $8 billion range, because defects are increasing as code complexity rises, and as users become less tolerant of software that doesn’t work the way it should. “There are lots of problems to solve and not a lot of [automated testing products] out there,” she asserted.

The company initially is putting Splat out for free, but will move to a subscription model, including a perpetual license with maintenance option. Pricing has not yet been announced.

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