Search-based software engineering

This paper claims that a new field of software engineering research and pra ctice is emerging: search-based software engineering. The paper argues that software engineering is ideal for the application of metaheuristic search techniques, such as genetic algorithms, simulated annealing and tabu search . Such search-based techniques could provide solutions to the difficult pro blems of balancing competing (and some times inconsistent) constraints and may suggest ways of finding acceptable solutions in situations where perfec t solutions are either theoretically impossible or practically infeasible. In order to develop the field of search-based software engineering, a refor mulation of classic software engineering problems as search problems is req uired, The paper briefly sets out key ingredients for successful reformulat ion and evaluation criteria for search-based software engineering. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.