tests as documentations.

[Christopher Hicks]

On Wed, Jun 06, 2007 at 01:45:18PM -0700, Chris Weyl wrote:
> So.  Here's what I've been hearing:
> 
> 1.  Questions mainly related to why the change in practice on my part,
> e.g. "why? ... oh, ok."
> 2.  "Well, it's your package, it's in %doc and conforms to guidelines"
> 3.  Test suites ought to be executable, and have all their deps met.
> 
> #1 was the most popular, followed by #2.  One person strongly feels
> #3, and doesn't appear to buy the "tests make good docs" argument
> under any circumstances.  As near as I can tell, most people don't
> seem to really care one way or the other.
> 
> As things stand, I'm inclined to go forward with "encourage optionally
> packaging t/ in %docs, following guidelines (no exec, no deps; split
> to -docs if the end package is too large)", but I see a couple
> different ways this could go as well.
> 
> What do you all think?

Some way to run the test suite would cure my last gripe with replacing CPAN.pm with rpms.  Having the files under %doc is fine, but include a script (exec'd or not) that installs dependant rpms for the test, sets the permissions usefully, and then runs the test suite.  Having them there as docs is good and all, but not having some semipainless standard mechanism for making that more useful would be sad.

Another solutions would be to split out a test package with the dependancies elucidated, but my sense is that that sort of thing doesn't follow the spirit people are doing things in rpmland these days.  My sense may be wrong, but if it isn't why is that?
 
-- 
</chris>

"The problem with troubleshooting is that trouble shoots back!"