Fergal Daly writes: > On 17/09/06, chromatic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > I'm uncomfortable effectively recommending that people *not* use a > > module until someone deliberately reports "Hey, it works better than > > you think on this platform!" to the author and the author releases a > > completely new version to un-TODO those tests. > > having thought about it a bit more, I don't even accept it as a > legitimate use of TODO. If you don't support a platform (or you don't > support platforms that do X) then you test for X and then SKIP.
But that involves the module author having detailed knowledge about platforms to which she doesn't have access. It seems entirely plausible that an author wishes to add features A and B to a module, and has a go at it. She codes A and it works fine. Her initial attempt at B happens to include something platform-specific in it, but she hasn't yet tracked down what. Or perhaps she merely _suspects_ there are some platform-specific bits in there: the code runs fine on her computer but she's some vague recollection that something she used won't work on at least some other OSes; she decides she needs to read up on best practices in this area. However there are users clamouring for feature A urgently, so she makes a release before she's completely done feature B; in other words B is still to do, so she marks the B tests as such. It may happen that some of B's tests pass on some platforms, because her initial non-rigorous code does get the correct answer in some circumstances; it just isn't yet in a position where the author would claim it gets the right answer all the time on all platforms. So it doesn't follow that those currently passing tests are a problem. > So while I don't think I'd vote for stopping the install because of an > expected pass, I don't think it's ever a good sign. They aren't a good sign. But they aren't (necessarily) a bad sign either. > The idea of something working "better" than than the author expected > is a bit dubious. Sure -- it possibly happened by chance. Which is why the result usually isn't interesting. Smylers
