On Wed, 2009-08-19 at 15:53 +0200, Ludovic Courtès wrote: > Mike Gran <spk...@yahoo.com> writes: > > > On Wed, 2009-08-19 at 10:38 +0200, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> I just wanted to hear what you and others thought about the issue, > because I think unit tests are a crucial part of software development. OK. To say something slightly more cogent. I think when a current phase of development centers around modifying low-level code, it is useful to have a set of low-level tests. If those tests fail, it reminds the developer that s/he has modified something upon which other routines rely. I wrote the string-internals tests to indicate to me when I'd done something that had unexpected side-effects. They are intentionally white-box; they are intentionally reflexive. There is a danger that those tests, should they remain, could be seen as indicating software requirements, which they do not. The software requirement specification for Scheme (RnRS) is high level and leaves much of the implementation detail unspecified. I think it is a good idea to leave them in, probably with comments that express that they test the implementation, not the specification. I also think that it is a good idea to segregate them from tests that exercise the actual software requirements. But, I can see an equally valid argument for stripping them out once strings are no longer in flux, for example at release 2.0, assuming it is bug free ;-) or perhaps 2.1. Thanks, Mike > > Thanks, > Ludo'. > > >
