Test-Driven Development and Embedded Systems: An Exploratory Investigation

We present the results of an exploratory investigation to obtain preliminary evidence on the use of Test-Driven Development (TDD), an incremental approach to software development where tests are written before production code, to develop Embedded Systems (ESs). Specifically, we conducted two experiments in which we compared TDD with a non-TDD approach in terms of the external quality of ESs and developers’ productivity. In the experiments, we also gathered qualitative data to better understand the investigated phenomenon. We found that the external quality of the implemented solutions increases when using TDD as compared to a non-TDD approach, while there is not a substantial difference with respect to developers’ productivity. However, TDD is perceived as more difficult to apply than a non-TDD approach, and the development task is deemed more challenging with TDD.