Re: Standard Library Interest?

["Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca>]

Stefan Lucks wrote:
> On 9 Oct 2003, Stephen Leake wrote:
>>Stefan Lucks <lucks@th.informatik.uni-mannheim.de> writes:
>>>  1. a unit test for the package and
>>
>>I find Aunit to be a good unit test framework (see
>>http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/grace/ for a working example).
> 
> You missed my point! 
> 
> Think of a "customer" (i.e., any programmer who wants to "with" the
> library) and call her A. A somehow (perpaps by downloading it from the web
> site) gets her hands on the source code of some library packages. The very
> first thing she will (or at least should) do is to ask each package: "Are
> you okay?" ("Is this package compiling under my compiler and running on my
> target platform under my target platform's configuration?")
> 
> The best way to answer this question is to run the entire battery of unit
> tests which have been used by the author of the library package. I would 
> want to provide A with a simple button to fire the test battery. And this 
> button should be at the same place and have the same shape and color for 
> all packages of the standard library!
> 
> It is a non-issue for A, which test framework has been used by the author 
> of the library package. 

The general idea is good (provision for testing), but I don't like
the child package idea. It enjoys a different visibility as a child
package, than the consumer of the package would enjoy. Thus, I don't
think the tests would be accurate to the "user experience" as they
need to be.

I would suggest that the test packages and programs, fall under their
own heirarchy, complete and separate from the library units. After all,
if I test the libraries at install time, I may want to dispense with
the test files after the fact. It is easy to dispense with the test
packages, if they are separated from the end product.

Warren.