Re: 1.7.2 cycle will open soon

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Thu, May 06, 2010 at 09:06:43AM +0200, Johannes Sixt wrote:

> Am 5/6/2010 8:44, schrieb Jonathan Nieder:
> >  test_when_finished () {
> > 	test_cleanup="$* && $test_cleanup"
> >  }
> 
> I'm wondering why you want this test_cleanup at all?
> 
> Is it so that subsequent tests can succeed even if an earlier test failed
> before its regular cleanup?
> 
> I don't see what this buys you. If a test case uncovers a regression, you
> got to fix it - who cares how many later tests fail or not? Once you are
> finished with your change, all tests will pass anyway (including their
> regular cleanups).

I have to agree. Yes, using test_when_finished can make _some_ tests
more robust, but there will still be many tests whose breakage will
break future tests. And many of those will never be fixed, because the
tests simply build on one another.

So I don't think we will ever "solve" this problem, which means testers
will continue to have to fix early failures before looking at later
ones, because they don't know if the later test is a false negative or
not. And as you point out, it is simply not that big a deal in the first
place.

-Peff