[boost] Re: Re: [Test] BOOST_TEST removed?

From: Gennadiy Rozental (gennadiy.rozental_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-02-03 03:02:47

"Martin Wille" <mw8329_at_[hidden]> wrote in message
news:4201D178.60406_at_yahoo.com.au...
> Gennadiy Rozental wrote:
> >>>It's been deprecated *since the dawn of time*.  I planned post an
> >>>announcement together with library update announcement.
> >>
> >>Still, developers like to avoid broken regression tests; they're
> >>upsetting to developers at best.  A simple post with advance warning
> >>that you were going to remove BOOST_TEST would have given everyone an
> >>opportunity to prevent a large swath of red squares.
> >
> >
> > What's wrong with red squares? Isn't it a basic paradigm of TDD? You
make
> > change - you fix all the test cases that failed. Failing test cases is
your
> > announcement that something needs to be done. Anyway 3 years should've
been
> > enough to get rid of tools that were announced deprecated.
>
> Well, one thing that is wrong with red squares is that they
> cost resources.

Sure. Testing cost resources. But it brings real value instead. In this
case, for example, it served as a change announcement. It general it brings
a level of confidence so you could make any changes. If anything breakes
test system tells you so. In extreme TDD you start with all test cases
failing (some of them written even before implementation is done) and then
fix them.

> Testing time significantly grows with the
> number of failing tests.

Why is that? You need to redo any test case affected in any case, right? So
test failing in compile time, for example, may actually decrease testing
time (no linking, no running)

> Giving the developers a chance to
> phase out BOOST_TEST would have decreased the number of
> attempts to compile broken code.

It's kinda unclear what change needs to be pre-anounced and which not. Any
anouncement assumes some grace period (and what if some developers are
unavailable or missed an anouncement?). It also assumes that something
should be done before the change will actually happend. It all eventually
leads to longer development time for one who make an anouncement. Amount of
time/work for the rest of developers is the same (I would guess that it even
less with known test cases that needs to be fixed and change already in
place). In any case I do not see a failing test case as a something to be
upset about. Rather I feel satisfaction that testing system again helped me.
It much worse when all test cases are passing and you finding error only in
users reports. This makes tests a most valuable and salvagable part of any
project (IMO)

> OTOH, if it has been deprecated for a long time, then
> developers should have phased it out already. Anyway,
> a heads-up would have been helpful.
>
>
> Regards,
> m

Gennadiy

P.S. Above sentiments of course assumes that all the developers making
changes actually to improve the project, not to break one ;)