A simpler test framework? (was: Re: The 'easy' tag)

[Martin Pool]

2009/7/9 Gioele Barabucci <gioele at svario.it>:
> Vincent Ladeuil wrote:
>
>> Hmpf, typo there, I think you meant: so we could set up a project
>> to improve our test framework so that the tests too become easy
>> to write.
> I'd love to see a better test framework or, at least, a through guide to
> making new tests.
>
> I have a couple of patches with new little features that I'd like to send
> but I don't because I know that they cannot be commited as they are now,
> i.e. without tests to test these features.
>
> A simpler test framework could lower the barrier to development for
> newcomers, a barrier that now is quite high IMHO.

I agree that writing a good test for something is often at least as
hard as writing the fix or enhancement itself and testing it manually,
especially to new contributors.

I don't think we need a completely new testing framework but we could
do a lot to improve its ease of use and documentation.  It's a classic
case where the people who know how to improve it no longer see the
problems so clearly as the people who're new to the test suite.

One thing we could try is this: you ask questions about things that
are unclear in the test suite documentation, people answer them on the
list, and then we turn that into developer documentation, possibly
just by copying and pasting the mail.

-- 
Martin <http://launchpad.net/~mbp/>