Re: Python related autopkgtest anti-pattern
On Thu, 19 Mar 2020 at 09:27:35 -0400, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> The fact that these tests are failing right now makes them relatively easy to
> find, but even if they weren't failing, I still think testing against installed
> versions is wrong. Tests should have an intentional scope, not act of
> whatever happens to be present.
Yes, I don't disagree with that.
> I think this is true even for applications that will only ever actually be
> used with the default python3. As an example, in xml2rfc I use the pattern
> I'm suggesting here so that when a new python3 version is added as supported,
> it gets tested right away and I know if there's a problem long before it
> becomes the default.
That does seem like a good thing to test, at least in the cases where
it's straightforward.
One down side of having a test-dependency on python3-all is that if
you (or your packaging toolchain) forgot to add the required python3
dependency for a python3 script, your autopkgtest won't catch that.
(But Lintian hopefully will.)
smcv
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