Re: [boost] Formal review: New Boost.Test Library

From: Ullrich Koethe (u.koethe_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-12-06 11:36:35

Fernando Cacciola wrote:
> 
> ) I don't like the names of the macros 'BOOST_WARN_MESSAGE',
> 'BOOST_CHECK_MESSAGE', 'BOOST_REQUIRE_MESSAGE', they don't do what they are
> sematically implying: That is, 'check message' implies: 'check *the*
> message, not 'check *this* and eventually show a message'. I suggest....
> something else :)  [just couldn't come up with something]
> 

Since I might be the one who once invented these names: I also didn't
like them very much, but couldn't find any better ones either. So,
suggestions please...

> ) I *strongly* disagree with having floating point and collection equlity
> tools as part of the test library. They are orthogonal to the unit test
> framework. I would agree to provide, in the proper place, a floating point 
> comparator and a sequence matcher, but they should be outside the test suite.
>

I *strongly* disagree with your opinion. Perhaps you are right from the
standpoint of purity and beauty, but in practice floating point and
collection equality are among the most frequent tests. So, until someone
implements the external module you are proposing, they *belong* to the
unit test framework. One can still refactor this later.

[As an aside: it would be really helpful for testing if there were some
support for determining the right tolerance for floating point
comparisons automatically on every platform, depending on the expected
error of the computation. Would this be part of your module?]

Regards
Ulli
-- 
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| Ullrich Koethe  Universität Hamburg / University of Hamburg    |
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