From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Glenn Morris Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: call for more ert tests Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 13:31:50 -0400 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1372095114 6203 80.91.229.3 (24 Jun 2013 17:31:54 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 17:31:54 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Jun 24 19:31:56 2013 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1UrAcN-0007Vb-IQ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 24 Jun 2013 19:31:55 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:42518 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1UrAcN-0000cw-6p for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 24 Jun 2013 13:31:55 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:56826) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1UrAcK-0000cL-BR for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 24 Jun 2013 13:31:53 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1UrAcJ-0006s0-Cc for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 24 Jun 2013 13:31:52 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:47470) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1UrAcJ-0006rw-9V for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 24 Jun 2013 13:31:51 -0400 Original-Received: from rgm by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1UrAcI-0003Vx-HR; Mon, 24 Jun 2013 13:31:50 -0400 X-Spook: Bosnia cryptographic Zachawi ASIO George W. Bush Legion X-Ran: >)dB*Q~(1G6{hqa;4w)AUf,n0@G'y/,[k8m'Kx[r}1PU0'.Z6nKHbN++UNSPh}9oKSTl?W X-Hue: green X-Attribution: GM User-Agent: Gnus (www.gnus.org), GNU Emacs (www.gnu.org/software/emacs/) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Error: Malformed IPv6 address (bad octet value). X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:160956 Archived-At: There are a lot of bugs in Emacs. [1] To me, too many of these feel like breakage of things that used to work before, because of implementation changes, or whatever. One thing that could help reduce this is more unit tests. If you haven't used it, ERT makes it pretty easy to write tests. Of course, many aspects of Emacs's behaviour are not easy to test (GUI stuff, etc.), but many are. See test/automated/ for examples. [2] For example, package.el seems like something that should have a test suite. So if you fix a bug, please consider adding a unit test to make sure it does not come back. Or if you rewrite a lisp package, consider adding tests at the same time to check that obvious functionality still works. I know writing tests is maybe not as interesting as writing shiny new features, but I think it will save work in the long run. [1] E.g. http://debbugs.gnu.org/rrd/emacs.html [2] I think it is a bit embarrassing that the limited test suite that we have has been broken for months, though. Bugs 13064, 13662.