Keep the tests in the same directories as the modules -- makes it easier to keep them up-to-date.

That's what I've been doing thus far. I wasn't sure whether that was considered a good practice for CPAN modules. If it is in fact deemed acceptable, I'm more than happy to continue on this way.

More testing = less bugs = less work = more happiness

I couldn't agree more. I've been testing this module that I'm currently writing a ton along the way, and it's made it a much more pleasurable experience. It's a great feeling to perform a major refactoring of feature addition, and to run a huge battery of tests and see them all give you the green light.

I guess now what it all boils down to is whether to stick with Test::Unit, or to jump over to Test::More. Test::Unit is pretty cool, but I'm concerned about it not being very well supported by the authors. The test scripts for the install break, and it hasn't been updated I think since 2001, at which point they were promising better docs. Alas, no such thing has been forthcoming and they have gone silent.

Another nice thing about T::More is the large number of other helper modules that play nicely alongside it. I don't know if they work with T::Unit, maybe they do, but the whole suite is great. T::Exception, T::DatabaseRow, etc etc.

Another link worth posting again is petdance's testing large projects with perl.

And while I am on my soapbox, let me also praise Test::MockObject.

test driven development -- rah! rah! rah!

water,water everywhere

Let's see: Test::Unit needs development help, you need Test::Unit... sounds like a match made in heaven! :-) (Isn't this how modules survive past their originators?)

Chris
M-x auto-bs-mode

That's not a bad idea, though I know nothing about how one goes about taking over what has obviously become an abandoned project. Furthermore, while I'd personally say that two years without any development constitutes an abandoned project, that doesn't necessarily mean that they will agree. :-)