--- On Tue, 8/11/09, Chad <innocentkil...@gmail.com> wrote: > To be perfectly honest, I'm of the opinion that tests/ and > t/ > should be scrapped and it should all be done over, > properly. > > What we need is an easy and straightforward way to write > test cases, so people are encouraged to write them. Right > now, nobody understands wtf is going on in tests/ and t/, > so > they get ignored and the /vast/ majority of the code isn't > tested. > > What we need is something similar to parser tests, where > it's > absurdly easy to pop new tests in with little to no coding > required at all. Also, extensions having the ability to > inject > their own tests into the framework is a must IMHO.
There is a way to easily add tests, but it requires some community discipline. phpunit has a --skeleton command (actually two variations of it) that automatically generates unit tests. (see http://www.phpunit.de/manual/current/en/skeleton-generator.html). All developers have to do is add assertions (which have the appearance of comments) to their code and call phpunit with the --skeleton flag. If you want even more hand holding, Netbeans will do it for you. This is all wonderful, but there are problems: * Who is going to go back and create all of the assertions for existing code? Not me (at least not alone). This is too big a job for one person. In order for this to work, you need buy in from at least a reasonable number of developers. So far, the number of developers expressing an interest in code quality and testing is pretty small. * What motivation is there for those creating new code to do the work to add assertions with good code coverage? So far I haven't seen anything in the MW code development process that would encourage a developer to do this. Without some carrots (and maybe a few sticks) this approach has failure written all over it. * Even if we get a bunch of Unit tests, how are they integrated into a useful whole? That requires some decisions on test infrastructure. This thread begins the discussion on that, but it really needs a lot more. * MW has a culture problem. Up to this point people just sling code into trunk and think they are done. As far as I can tell, very few feel they have any responsibility for ensuring their code won't break the product. [Perhaps I am being unkind on this. Without any testing tools available, it is quite possible that developers want to ensure the quality of their code, but don't have the means of doing so.] I realize these observations may make me unpopular. However, someone has to make them. If everyone just gets mad, it doesn't solve the problem. It just pushes it out to a time when it is even more serious. Dan _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
