in reply to A good lesson on Tie (through a negative example)

Interesting enough, that module actually passed CPAN testing on most platforms, other than Solaris. I am really curious as what test cases they used, and who decided that those cases were sufficient.

I believe that just means it built okay and passed its own tests. (I.e. make tests worked.) The test cases are decided upon and implemented by the author(s) of the module.

The model generally works well. Except on a case by case basis, it wouldn't make sense for third parties to try to write tests for your module. You specified it and you wrote it so you create the tests. CPAN makes it available. Users test it. You answer the bug reports.

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";
  • Comment on Re: A good lesson on Tie (through a negative example)

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Re: Re: A good lesson on Tie (through a negative example)
by pg (Canon) on Nov 02, 2003 at 17:12 UTC

    I think that I have to agree with you ;-)

    On the other hand, those test cases designed by the author can only be considered as unit test cases. It must then pass UAT (User Acceptance Testing).

    Now talk about UAT, the author of the module shall never influence, not to say design, the UAT test cases. But I understand that as an open forum, each tester (I remember they had/have this role for CPAN) only has very limited amount of time to commit, as everybody has their day time job to do. Think about the numbers of CPAN modules people submit all the time, the idea of having formal UAT is also defeated.

    Even if there would be a UAT, the quality of the UAT is again a question, as those people who do the UAT for a module may never use it in their real life, and they don't really care (the level they care is much lower than your real users, who do the UAT and will have to live with the bugs they missed ;-).

    Now you are end up with doing the UAT yourself. But for well known modules, the situation is quite different, as lots of people used them before you, which means that lots of people have done UAT for you already.

[reply]
      But for well known modules, the situation is quite different, as lots of people used them before you, which means that lots of people have done UAT for you already.

      Well, sure! :-)

      And not only do popular modules get more testing, the popularity of a module itself is proof that it has been accepted by many users.

      -sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";
[reply]

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