I think regression testing is a laudable goal. But it only tests under fixed circumstances, prescribed by all the scaffolding. It assures that under those specific conditions, the functions you test, seem to have passed on the basis of conformity with earlier or planned behavior. But it cannot assure that in the heat of battle, the functions will continue to perform properly. And it will possibly miss those all important corner cases. Errors of failure to anticipate.

It would seem to me that the only way to assure a consistent quality it to program in largely functional style, and provide in-situ design by contract clauses that operate at each invocation. The entire system beneath the code could have changed and there would be no other way to know this without the contractual clauses in place.

I know that implies a large runtime overhead. But how else to know the integrity of the entire system?

- DM

On Jun 19, 2016, at 7:54 AM, David McClain dbm@refined-audiometrics.com wrote:

It seems, from the docs, that these are simply wrapper macros around function bodies used to establish local context for the function under test.

What seems to be missing from the discussion is that all the scaffolding needed for proper testing gets in the way of finding the corner cases where the testing is really needed. Reminds me of programming in C where, by the time all the scaffolding is in place, one has forgotten what problem is being solved.

Dr. David McClain Refined Audiometrics Laboratory, LLC

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...

On Jun 19, 2016, at 9:27, Antoniotti Marco antoniotti.marco@disco.unimib.it wrote:

Hi

let me ask here...

Does anybody know how "fixtures" work in FiveAM? I am not quite grokking them.

Cheers

Marco

-- Marco Antoniotti, Associate Professor tel. +39 - 02 64 48 79 01 DISCo, Università Milano Bicocca U14 2043 http://bimib.disco.unimib.it Viale Sarca 336 I-20126 Milan (MI) ITALY

Please check: http://cdac.lakecomoschool.org

Please note that I am not checking my Spam-box anymore. Please do not forward this email without asking me first.

All right.

Does anybody know how to get on the FIveAM mailing list?

The links from the web site are dead.

Cheers — MA

On Jun 19, 2016, at 17:59 , Antoniotti Marco antoniotti.marco@disco.unimib.it wrote:

...

On Jun 19, 2016, at 16:54 , David McClain dbm@refined-audiometrics.com wrote:

It seems, from the docs, that these are simply wrapper macros around function bodies used to establish local context for the function under test.

Yes. But documentation is scarce and I couldn’t figure out how to define and/or use such macros. I’m lazy. I know.

...

What seems to be missing from the discussion is that all the scaffolding needed for proper testing gets in the way of finding the corner cases where the testing is really needed. Reminds me of programming in C where, by the time all the scaffolding is in place, one has forgotten what problem is being solved.

Ok. That is a different discussion…

Marco

...

Dr. David McClain Refined Audiometrics Laboratory, LLC

Sent from a mobile device

...

On Jun 19, 2016, at 9:27, Antoniotti Marco antoniotti.marco@disco.unimib.it wrote:

Hi

let me ask here...

Does anybody know how "fixtures" work in FiveAM? I am not quite grokking them.

Cheers

Marco

-- Marco Antoniotti, Associate Professor tel. +39 - 02 64 48 79 01 DISCo, Università Milano Bicocca U14 2043 http://bimib.disco.unimib.it Viale Sarca 336 I-20126 Milan (MI) ITALY

Please check: http://cdac.lakecomoschool.org

Please note that I am not checking my Spam-box anymore. Please do not forward this email without asking me first.

-- Marco Antoniotti, Associate Professor tel. +39 - 02 64 48 79 01 DISCo, Università Milano Bicocca U14 2043 http://bimib.disco.unimib.it Viale Sarca 336 I-20126 Milan (MI) ITALY

Please check: http://cdac.lakecomoschool.org

Please note that I am not checking my Spam-box anymore. Please do not forward this email without asking me first.

-- Marco Antoniotti, Associate Professor tel. +39 - 02 64 48 79 01 DISCo, Università Milano Bicocca U14 2043 http://bimib.disco.unimib.it Viale Sarca 336 I-20126 Milan (MI) ITALY

Please check: http://cdac.lakecomoschool.org

Please note that I am not checking my Spam-box anymore. Please do not forward this email without asking me first.