Hi people!
On Thu, Sep 28, 2006 at 01:40:55AM +0100, Steve McIntyre wrote:
> >thanks for the interest,
>
> *grin* I was just a little worried things had gone quiet; I've been
> watching the list for a while. But you all seem happy enough with
> where things are at the moment, and that's cool.
>
> I'd volunteer to help myself, but right now it would just be another
> project for me to feel guilty about not working on due to lack of
> time... :-(
As I was the one who talked to Steve, I think I should say something :-)
The thing that worried me the most was the silence after my proposals or
questions on the testing framework. I assume that we mostly agree about the
_having_ some test suite for the most important utility in Debian, so the
problem seems to be either lack of time or agreement.
I would _really_ like to put my money where my mouth is, that is, I'm NOT
just evangelizing about testing and expecting that _another_ developer steps
in. I really want to help in the design and implementation of the whole thing,
and I would even like to lead the development if no one wants to... but,
before starting, I would like to have some sort of acknowledgement that there
is interest in it. Don't get me wrong, I _want_ it to be useful and I'm not
afraid of throwing some code away and rewriting if that's the best thing to
do. I just don't want to first write "lots" of code and then realize that
people don't like the approach or something like that (more or less what
happened with my first try).
So, to summarize the current situation, AFAICT:
1) In the "Working on dpkg during Debconf" thread[1], Frank said[2] we
need four different kinds of tests (C unit, C functional, Perl unit, Perl
functional).
2) Frank has experience in Perl unit/functional tests. I have experience
in 2, 3 and 4 (well, 2 is basically the same as 4). So, the only weak point
right now seems to be 1. And in fact I have done some limited C unit testing
for my first testing framework proposal, using check[3].
3) After a neat tip from Jörg, I showed[4] a simple way to "solve" 1 for
dpkg.
4) There hasn't been any discussion, AFAIK, about the design of the
framework. I haven't even heard too many comments on my initial proposal, so
I'm not sure what's wrong with it (if there is anything at all!) to improve
the second try :-) The only comment I remember was from Scott, who said[5]:
------------------------------------- 8< -------------------------------------
My main concerns so far with test suites is that the suite be:
1) easy for users and casual developers to run, and be able to quickly
identify failed tests and use them to fix the code.
2) sufficiently easy to use to encourage developers to write tests with
every code modification they make, and even with every bug fix.
3) not require exotic or unusual support platforms or languages.
[...]
DejaGNU in particular doesn't seem to manage to satisfy any of these
three concerns [...]
That being said, I did have some interesting discussions with tridge at
LCA about how they test the samba suite.
------------------------------------- >8 -------------------------------------
As I tried to explain, I don't think 1 and 2 are that problematic, because I
didn't want to use DejaGNU as the testing framework, but build a testing
framework _on top of it_. I tried to ask him if he had any specific idea on
how it should look like, and languages/platforms he considered OK, but he
never replied :-(
5) Frank has begun some work on a testing framework for dpkg-dev[6] (only
the Perl tools, I think), available as an Arch repository. I don't know what's
the current state for his project.
6) I also proposed[7] using different tools/frameworks for each kind of
tests, and integrate them with the TAP format (the Perl test output format).
Now I'm not sure it is such a good idea, but... :-)
Perhaps we could start with a list of requirements or something like that. Any
ideas?
Best regards,
[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-dpkg/2006/05/msg00000.html
[2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-dpkg/2006/05/msg00031.html
[3] http://check.sf.net/
[4] http://lists.debian.org/debian-dpkg/2006/05/msg00052.html
[5] http://lists.debian.org/debian-dpkg/2005/06/msg00043.html
[6] http://lists.debian.org/debian-dpkg/2005/08/msg00010.html
[7] http://lists.debian.org/debian-dpkg/2006/07/msg00006.html
--
Esteban Manchado Velázquez <zoso@debian.org>
EuropeSwPatentFree - http://EuropeSwPatentFree.hispalinux.es
Help spread it through the Net in signatures, webpages, whatever!
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature