Re: [boost] Boost Test Library: general floating point comparisons

From: Paul A Bristow (pbristow_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-02-17 13:11:05

>-----Original Message-----
>From: boost-bounces_at_[hidden] 
>[mailto:boost-bounces_at_[hidden]] On Behalf Of Edward Diener
>Sent: 16 February 2007 17:39
>To: boost_at_[hidden]
>Subject: Re: [boost] Boost Test Library: general floating 
>point comparisons
>
>>  > The interface requiring percentages is bad enough.

May I suggest again that it would be better to also provide a

BOOST_CHECK_CLOSE_FRACTION
BOOST_CHECK_CLOSE_PERCENT

even though the 2nd is the same as BOOST_CHECK_CLOSE.

It won't cost anything - and it makes it clearer to readers who haven't read the docs.

>I, and others, have publicly offered to help with the grammatical area 
>of Boost documentation. 

I've actuaally tried to help in the past, but the way in which it is written (using Dreamweaver) and with various bits linking
together, defeated *joint working* (Gennadiy et various al) on the whole Unit Test documentation.

My conclusion was that it was best to start completely from the beginning, (perhaps using Quick/DocBook and the sandbox with CVS -
something that I hope people will judge has been effective on the MathToolkit project - certainly generated tons of pages - but
still needs an INDEX - something that would help ALL the docs including Test Framework) but I can quite understand the Gennadiy is
relunctant to put that amount of effort in.

So I'm not sure where to go from here.

Paul

PS As usual John has put his finger on the key point here

"I understand where you're coming from, but here's the thing: Boost.Test is 
used to test *code*.  IMO for testing code a percentage is just in the wrong 
order of magnitude for the job."

I Agree - and we both begged you not to do it at the start ;-)

I think we will all agree we should have done more than beg!

---
Paul A Bristow
Prizet Farmhouse, Kendal, Cumbria UK LA8 8AB
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pbristow_at_[hidden]