From owner-freebsd-stable Mon Oct 21 16:22:34 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 45BF237B401 for ; Mon, 21 Oct 2002 16:22:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from twirl.bitdance.com (twirl.bitdance.com [208.210.83.50]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id ADFF843E88 for ; Mon, 21 Oct 2002 16:22:32 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from bitz@twirl.bitdance.com) Received: from twirl.bitdance.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by twirl.bitdance.com (8.12.3/8.12.3) with ESMTP id g9LNMNIN021787; Mon, 21 Oct 2002 19:22:26 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from bitz@twirl.bitdance.com) Received: from localhost (bitz@localhost) by twirl.bitdance.com (8.12.6/8.12.6/Submit) with ESMTP id g9LNMNab021784; Mon, 21 Oct 2002 19:22:23 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 19:22:23 -0400 (EDT) From: "R. David Murray" To: Matthew Whelan Cc: FreeBSD-Stable Subject: Re: freebsd test matrix In-Reply-To: <20021021235512.C6F1.MUTTLEY@gotadsl.co.uk> Message-ID: <20021021191920.U21141-100000@twirl.bitdance.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Tue, 22 Oct 2002, Matthew Whelan wrote: > I couldn't agree more. Testing discovers bugs at a faster rate than > debugging, at least until the test becomes 'too big'. As a result, it > actually *SAVES* developer time. If this weren't the case, noone would > do it outside of safety-critical systems. The clever bit is knowing when > to stop (ie. how big is too big). Starting should be a no-brainer. The solution to the too big problem is to make many smaller tests, and to have a test harness that allows you to run them selectively. In XP, you write the tests *first*, and then write the code to make the tests pass. This also saves developer time, in my experience (not that I always do it that way, mind ). --RDM To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message