8.6 Founding Principles of Mutation Testing
Mutation testing is a powerful testing technique for achieving correct, or close to correct, programs. It rests on two fundamental principles. One principle is commonly known as the competent programmer hypothesis (CPH), or the competent programmer assumption. The other is known as the coupling effect. We discuss these next.
Appropriate use of mutation testing can lead to close-to-correct programs.
8.6.1 The competent programmer hypothesis
The CPH arises from a simple observation made of practicing programmers. The hypothesis states that given a problem statement, a programmer writes a program Ρ that is in the general neighborhood of the set of correct programs.
An extreme interpretation of CPH ...
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