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Re: unchecked conversion warning.

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Martin Gregorie wrote:
> Roedy Green wrote:
>
>> Perhaps docs should be written by the folks who write the test code.
>> The get to ask the coders, decide what makes sense. They will than
>> answer the questions that need answering and clarify that which is
>> guaranteed.
>>
> Ideally the javadocs would form at least part of the module-level
> documentation and so should be written by the designers, not the coders.
> I think there's a case for the module design documentation to be written
> entirely as a javadoc package suite, i.e. they contain the descriptive
> text as class and public method level comments as well as the associated
> declarations. There's also a case for compiling, as a sanity check, them
> before they are given to the coders.
>
> Further, the design team are the people who should specify the module and
> regression tests and (hopefully) should be writing them too.
>
> IME you really don't want coders writing module tests. The problem is
> that they will tend to write tests for what they coded rather than for
> what the specification asked them to write and they may skimp on corner
> cases and error handling.

"Can't we all just get along?"

The business world speaks of "siloing" - "to silo" is to isolate personnel to 
a narrow wedge of the overall project.

Siloing can be good, but in software development usually is not.

It's vanishingly unlikely to be good if it isn't done on purpose with full 
understanding of its effects.

Siloing is not the same as division of responsibility. One can divide 
responsibilities among a team who is generally, and to varying degrees 
specifically aware of various dimensions of the project.

Siloing would be to keep programmers entirely away from test writing.

There is more than one type of test. Loosely, tests fall into unit tests and 
everything else.

Unit tests are, as the name should indicate, aimed at rather minimal units of 
code. They verify the behavior of a type's public face. Positively and negatively.

For example, from the spec for 'List#get(int)' it follows directly that the 
argument might be negative, zero, or positive, and may equal, exceed or be 
less than the size of the list. Any programmer worth their salt had better be 
able to write a full suite of unit tests for such a method.

<http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/List.html#get(int)>

As the designer of a type, let's say 'Foo', with a method 'goof(Bar)', the 
programmer knows exactly how the method should handle various possible values 
of the 'Bar' argument. Ideally up front, whilst writing the Javadocs thereto.

 From the Javadocs the tests follow directly. It shall do thus and so with a 
'null' argument, and react in a certain way to a reference to an uninitialized 
instance, and another to one in an inconsistent state, and yet another to one 
in a valid, initialized state.

That part is unit testing. Unit tests operate on components in isolation, 
separated from the context of a larger application. Their sources and sinks 
(inputs and outputs) are simulated via mock objects and other tricks where 
absolutely necessary. This form of testing is also called "hermetic", meaning 
sealed away from the operational environment.

The rest goes by different names according to specific line of inquiry. Some 
suggest "functional" test for everything regarding how components function /in 
situ/, while others restrict it to just those that confirm behaviors' 
conformance to spec /in situ/. That narrower sense is also called "acceptance" 
testing or "regression" testing. (Note: I'm being a little loosey-goosey here. 
If you have more refined definitions by all means share them.) Tests to ensure 
that components function well with each other are "integration" tests. Tests 
for performance and throughput or stability or load are called "performance", 
or in that last case, "load" tests.

Unit tests

Everything else (Functional tests in the wide sense)
  - Acceptance / regression (functional in the narrow sense)
  - Integration
  - Performance
  - - Load

Your taxonomy may vary. It will cover pretty much the same range, though.

Cross that in a matrix with a second dimension of techniques: programmed 
tests, fixtured tests (those with deterministic setup conditions), 
simulations, random-event tests, parametrized probabilistic test scenarios, 
and so on.

-- 
Lew
Honi soit qui mal y pense.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Friz.jpg

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unchecked conversion warning. Jens - 2012-05-30 15:32 +0200
  Re: unchecked conversion warning. Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2012-05-30 13:48 +0000
    Re: unchecked conversion warning. Jens - 2012-05-30 15:52 +0200
  Re: unchecked conversion warning. Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2012-05-30 07:54 -0700
    Re: unchecked conversion warning. Jens - 2012-05-31 22:23 +0200
      Re: unchecked conversion warning. Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2012-05-31 13:40 -0700
      Re: unchecked conversion warning. Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2012-05-31 16:50 -0400
        Re: unchecked conversion warning. Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2012-05-31 17:18 -0700
        Re: unchecked conversion warning. Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2012-06-01 08:14 +0200
          Re: unchecked conversion warning. Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2012-06-01 08:48 -0400
            Re: unchecked conversion warning. Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2012-06-01 07:32 -0700
            Re: unchecked conversion warning. Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2012-06-10 12:16 -0700
              Re: unchecked conversion warning. Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2012-06-10 22:08 +0000
                Re: unchecked conversion warning. Lew <noone@lewscanon.com> - 2012-06-10 17:09 -0700
                Re: unchecked conversion warning. Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2012-06-11 01:31 +0000
        Re: unchecked conversion warning. Jim Janney <jjanney@shell.xmission.com> - 2012-06-01 08:41 -0600
          Re: unchecked conversion warning. Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2012-06-01 08:44 -0700
            Re: unchecked conversion warning. markspace <-@.> - 2012-06-01 09:08 -0700
            Re: unchecked conversion warning. Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2012-06-01 09:31 -0700
            Re: unchecked conversion warning. Jim Janney <jjanney@shell.xmission.com> - 2012-06-01 11:02 -0600
            Re: unchecked conversion warning. Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2012-06-01 13:54 -0400
              Re: unchecked conversion warning. Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2012-06-01 16:44 -0700
                Re: unchecked conversion warning. Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2012-06-01 20:24 -0400
                Re: unchecked conversion warning. Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2012-06-01 19:36 -0700
          Re: natural/native language capabilities (was: unchecked conversion warning.) Jim Janney <jjanney@shell.xmission.com> - 2012-06-01 11:01 -0600
        Re: unchecked conversion warning. Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2012-06-10 12:13 -0700
        Re: unchecked conversion warning. Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-06-20 19:28 -0400
  Re: unchecked conversion warning. Broad Liyn <broadliyn@gmail.com> - 2012-06-10 21:52 -0700
    Re: unchecked conversion warning. Lew <noone@lewscanon.com> - 2012-06-10 23:50 -0700
    Re: unchecked conversion warning. Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2012-06-11 00:06 -0700
      Re: unchecked conversion warning. Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2012-06-16 15:17 +0200
        Re: unchecked conversion warning. Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2012-06-18 12:28 -0700
          Re: unchecked conversion warning. Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2012-06-19 23:14 +0200
            Re: unchecked conversion warning. Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2012-06-19 17:15 -0700
      Re: unchecked conversion warning. Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-06-20 19:22 -0400
    Re: unchecked conversion warning. Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-06-20 19:20 -0400

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