This work addresses the issue of choosing the most appropriate tool for performing the mutation testing from the point of view of the common user. It considers statistics of time and computer resources consumption, as well as empirical data such as user-friendliness and the functionality of the tool.
The problem with mutation testing is its time and computational complexity. For this reason, the common user would want an efficient and simple tool to perform a quality check of his test set and consequently the Java program. When choosing the most suitable tool, the actual user’s knowledge and specific needs must be considered. This includes the selection of what is to be tested, how skilled the user is in using similar tools, and what is at the user’s disposal in terms of computer resources.
Evaluating selected tools was the main challenge of this work. For this purpose, a set of desired properties and sub-properties or criteria is defined, that the tool must to a certain extent adhere to be considered successful. A Likert scale is defined for every criterion and used to rank the tools. The weighted ranking marks are used to calculate the final score.
The best final rating corresponds to a tool that offers the best choice for mutation testing to the general user. In the case of this work, it is PIT, which is the easiest to install and use, as it is integrated into the Eclipse IDE environment. It has a competitive quality of results, too.
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