2005 Volume 13 Issue 1 Pages 72-80
Efficient development of software and assurance of its reliability will become increasingly important issues in the future. Debugging methods that use orthogonal arrays to evaluate software functionality efficiently and assure reliability were known to be effective, but they had not penetrated the corporate culture, despite the holding of seminars to explain them. It was decided that practical education was needed, so training tools that provided experience with debugging were developed and used in further seminars. The purpose of the tools was to have the user find bugs planted in a virtual drink vending-machine operating on a spreadsheet program. Experience was also gained by the author by using the above methods to develop the training tools efficiently and assure their quality. The effect of training with these tools was immediately evidenced by inquiries about using the method in the development of a new product. Due to the large number of signal factors(35), an L36 orthogonal array was divided horizontally into two parts, and the sequence of experiments in one part was randomized. Bug testing that would have taken about six weeks previously was reduced to only three weeks.
