From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Volunteers to implement test for stuff called at startup? Date: Sun, 01 May 2016 18:41:48 +0300 Message-ID: <83y47tn5tv.fsf@gnu.org> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1462117350 12523 80.91.229.3 (1 May 2016 15:42:30 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 1 May 2016 15:42:30 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun May 01 17:42:30 2016 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 1awtVt-0000KN-Mx for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 01 May 2016 17:42:29 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:33486 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1awtVp-00075X-UE for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 01 May 2016 11:42:25 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:46464) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1awtVU-0006tr-Pt for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 01 May 2016 11:42:11 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1awtVJ-0007Wb-8h for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 01 May 2016 11:41:59 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:52815) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1awtVJ-0007VJ-5b for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 01 May 2016 11:41:53 -0400 Original-Received: from 84.94.185.246.cable.012.net.il ([84.94.185.246]:2594 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:128) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1awtVE-00016i-7K for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 01 May 2016 11:41:48 -0400 X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 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" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:203487 Archived-At: >From time to time, as part of development, we install changes that break some rare platforms or configurations. One reason for that is inadvertent calls during startup sequence to primitives that are either not yet set up (because Emacs is in the middle of its startup), or are simply not available in those rare configurations. For example, a recent change caused process-list to be called very early during startup. The code that was installed was not intended to run during startup, I think, so this was an inadvertent side effect. If the fact that process-list is called when Emacs starts was evident at the time, I'm sure several brows would have been raised, and the author would have been asked to explain why that is needed, with the result that this code could have been scrutinized in time for us to either change it not to run during startup, or add some conditions that would have avoided the trouble, or whatever. So with this in mind, one idea that could help us detect similar situations in the future would be to have a test in the test suite that would record every primitive called during startup, compare it against some expected list, and flag any changes (at least additions, not sure about deletions). Then both people who run the test suite regularly and bots like Hydra could flag any changes and let us handle these potential problems when they are young. Does that make sense? If so, would someone like to volunteer for the job? TIA