From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Eric M. Ludlam" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: next bugfix release? Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:19:58 -0400 Message-ID: <1250767198.31840.269.camel@projectile.siege-engine.com> References: <838whgik6y.fsf@gnu.org> <87prardif2.fsf@cyd.mit.edu> <200908191946.n7JJkpAm001304@godzilla.ics.uci.edu> <87vdkjsecq.fsf@stupidchicken.com> <20090819225645.GA2813@muc.de> <19084.34754.29507.98620@totara.tehura.co.nz> Reply-To: eric@siege-engine.com NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1250767323 22300 80.91.229.12 (20 Aug 2009 11:22:03 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 11:22:03 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Nick Roberts , joakim@verona.se, emacs-devel@gnu.org, Dan Nicolaescu , Stefan Monnier , Alan Mackenzie , Eli Zaretskii , Chong Yidong To: Lennart Borgman Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Aug 20 13:21:55 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1Me5iJ-0001DS-MY for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 20 Aug 2009 13:21:51 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:37717 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Me5iI-0002lq-51 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:21:50 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1Me5gB-0001mW-1J for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:19:39 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1Me5g8-0001k4-Er for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:19:37 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=37079 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Me5g7-0001jf-Nz for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:19:35 -0400 Original-Received: from static-71-184-83-10.bstnma.fios.verizon.net ([71.184.83.10]:52614 helo=projectile.siege-engine.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1Me5g4-0000IK-JQ; Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:19:32 -0400 Original-Received: from projectile.siege-engine.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by projectile.siege-engine.com (8.14.3/8.14.3/Debian-6) with ESMTP id n7KBK0lU002133; Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:20:00 -0400 Original-Received: (from zappo@localhost) by projectile.siege-engine.com (8.14.3/8.14.3/Submit) id n7KBJwMi002132; Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:19:58 -0400 X-Authentication-Warning: projectile.siege-engine.com: zappo set sender to eric@siege-engine.com using -f In-Reply-To: X-Mailer: Evolution 2.26.1 X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:114434 Archived-At: On Thu, 2009-08-20 at 11:02 +0200, Lennart Borgman wrote: > On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 1:16 AM, Nick Roberts wrote: > > > Yes. It's one of these @dfn{wallpaper paste} bugs, where when you press > > > an area of wallpaper firmly to the wall, the paste under it pops up > > > another bit of wallpaper somewhere else. It's going to be a horrible bug > > > to fix. Indeed, it may not be fixable, in the sense of doing the Right > > > Thing under every reasonable circumstance. > > > > Such 'bubbles', usually called regressions, might be less likely to appear > > if, as Cyd suggested, there was a CC mode equivalent of compilation.txt. > > I can't find this post now, so apologies if it reached a logical conclusion. > > It might also be harder to implement than compilation.txt, as expressions > > are probably not as self contained, but some kind of testuite seems essential > > to prevent these issues from recurring. > > > Is not some kind of unit tests what we want here? > > Adding a unit test for at least every serious and difficult bug seems > to me the right thing to do. > > > There are some unit tests frameworks on EmacsWiki. I have one modified > version of one of these in nXhtml. And CEDET has some unit tests > (which I have not looked at but I have run the test suite). Just as another vote for testing, CEDET floundered for a long time with performance and accuracy issues (say from 1996 through 2007 or so) until I started adding test suites. Ever since, I've been able to do sweeping changes to the underpinnings for performance, bugs or new features, and know that everything still works by running a single "make" command. Every user reported bug I fix gets a new test in one of the pre-existing test suites as I work on the bug, and several folks on the mailing list now are very good at providing test snippets for me, keeping maintenance and overhead low. I highly recommend doing the same for any complex task in Emacs. Eric