use Perl

• Just forget about the test reports (Score:1)

  by itub (5708)

  I, too, am tired about false test failure reports. However, my reaction has been just to ignore them them most of the time.
  • Re:Just forget about the test reports (Score:2)

    by Ovid (2709)

    That sounds nice, but false negatives are as bad as false positives. People either have to dig in and find out if it's really a failure or they learn to ignore failures, force the install and then complain when the module doesn't work. It's very important that this issue get resolved.

    Of course, there's yet another class of folks: those who won't install anything with test failures reported. If I have a choice amongst several modules, I don't want to dig through all of the test reports. As a result, I'
    • Re:Just forget about the test reports (Score:1)

      by perrin (4270) on 2005.09.29 12:37 (#43580) Journal

      Do people really pay attention to those test reports? I seem to remember them always being pretty bogus, with lots of failure reports for popular modules that obviously work. In my opinion, there isn't enough agreement about the purpose and extent of unit tests on CPAN modules for the test reports to be meaningful when choosing a module.

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      • Re:Just forget about the test reports (Score:2)

        by Ovid (2709)

        So are you suggesting that having useful test reports is not a worthwhile goal? I don't think you are.
        • Re:Just forget about the test reports (Score:1)

          by perrin (4270)

          I'm suggesting that having useful test reports is not an achievable goal, given the current lack of rules for CPAN tests. If you ask ten different authors what the tests on CPAN modules are for, you'll get ten different answers. Many don't intend for end users to run them at all. And there isn't any accepted way to say "this forking module should not be auto-tested on Windows, since it isn't intended to work there." I think the automated testing of all CPAN modules was a neat idea, but ultimately yields