Re: Source files organisation using gnat

[mfb@mbunix.mitre.org (Michael F Brenner)]

Mike said:
       (f) now, before giving it to the users, run all the regression
           tests manually that were previously run at the bottom of
           each package in Ada-83. They are now separate executables.

Wes said:
 the concept of having each package do its own regression tests
as part of elaboration has merit in some circumstances.  However,
it is not a part of many standard development processes.  So it is
misleading to offer this step as if it were a necessary part of
organizing source files into various directories (which is what
the original question was about)


Mike responds:
  If a standard development process does not have packages do their
  own regression test, then that standard development process should
  state where the regression tests are done instead. A development
  process without regression testing is incomplete. The benefit of
  the automated regression tests, during the period when they were
  possible, was that the process was automated, and therefore
  cheaper. You could tell with a quick search if the package
  body ended with the statements: BEGIN REGRESSION_TEST; END
  which automated quality checking of regression test occurrences
  (although you still had to manually check the DEPTH of the 
  regression test, to make sure it verified that each required
  change still works). This is in accord with the original
  post and the original answer to the post that some of the
  configuration management features well used in Ada are
  either not universally possible anymore, or are not considered
  as important as they are. When a language feature automates
  a good programming practice, that is good (and economical).