Re: short-circuit control forms

["Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com>]

If you change the code, then you didn't test what you deliver. It is
generally considered to be A Bad Thing in the mission critical world to run
your tests, modify the code, then deliver it. If you aren't playing in this
field, then the whole efficiency argument goes up in smoke anyway - so you
don't want to waste time fooling with the and thens.

However, I can see your point about minimizing the exposure to possible
undetected errors. Still, I would prefer to fix the errors up front - or
never put them in to begin with. But that starts opening up the question of
what level of testing is good enough? And is it better for your reputation
to have an occasional flakey error cause a system crash and have enormous
difficulty reproducing the conditions for you to detect & correct it or is
it better to have more frequent crashes in early deliveries and have an
easier time of detecting the problems & fixing them?  (Presuming, of course,
that this isn't Mission Critical software we're discuissing.) I think it
might depend on your individual situation. (In house customer vs general
public, cost of failures, etc.)

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Al Christians" <achrist@easystreet.com> wrote in message
news:3B3216D9.113A612B@easystreet.com...
> Wouldn't the best approach be to use 'and' most in testing, so that
> as many exceptions as possible are detected in testing, but use
> 'and then' most in the delivered code, so that as few exceptions
> as possible are detected by the customer?
>