Fixtures in FiveAM

[David McClain]

I think regression testing is a laudable goal. But it only tests under fixed circumstances, prescribed by all the scaffolding. It assures that under those specific conditions, the functions you test, seem to have passed on the basis of conformity with earlier or planned behavior. But it cannot assure that in the heat of battle, the functions will continue to perform properly. And it will possibly miss those all important corner cases. Errors of failure to anticipate.

It would seem to me that the only way to assure a consistent quality it to program in largely functional style, and provide in-situ design by contract clauses that operate at each invocation. The entire system beneath the code could have changed and there would be no other way to know this without the contractual clauses in place. 

I know that implies a large runtime overhead. But how else to know the integrity of the entire system?

- DM


> On Jun 19, 2016, at 7:54 AM, David McClain <dbm at refined-audiometrics.com> wrote:
> 
> It seems, from the docs, that these are simply wrapper macros around function bodies used to establish local context for the function under test. 
> 
> What seems to be missing from the discussion is that all the scaffolding needed for proper testing gets in the way of finding the corner cases where the testing is really needed. Reminds me of programming in C where, by the time all the scaffolding is in place, one has forgotten what problem is being solved. 
> 
> Dr. David McClain
> Refined Audiometrics Laboratory, LLC
> 
> Sent from a mobile device
> 
> 
>> On Jun 19, 2016, at 9:27, Antoniotti Marco <antoniotti.marco at disco.unimib.it> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi
>> 
>> let me ask here...
>> 
>> Does anybody know how "fixtures" work in FiveAM?  I am not quite grokking them.
>> 
>> Cheers
>> 
>> Marco
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> Marco Antoniotti, Associate Professor            tel.    +39 - 02 64 48 79 01
>> DISCo, Università Milano Bicocca U14 2043        http://bimib.disco.unimib.it
>> Viale Sarca 336
>> I-20126 Milan (MI) ITALY
>> 
>> Please check: http://cdac.lakecomoschool.org
>> 
>> Please note that I am not checking my Spam-box anymore.
>> Please do not forward this email without asking me first.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
>