[dmd-internals] dmd commit, revision 657

[Jason House]

On Sep 3, 2010, at 8:53 AM, Don Clugston <dclugston at googlemail.com> wrote:

> On 3 September 2010 14:44, Jason House <jason.james.house at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sep 3, 2010, at 3:19 AM, Don Clugston <dclugston at googlemail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Similarly, many bugzilla entries gave a "reduced test case" posted to them
>> when Don confirms the bug. Such tests should also make their way into the
>> test suite.
>> 
>> That could be helpful, and save a little bit of time. Note, though,
>> that usually, by the time I've created a good test case, I've nearly
>> fixed the bug.
>> 
>> Honestly, I would be shocked if you claimed it was a big time saver when
>> developing the patch. The savings occur over time when they catch
>> regressions.
> 
> I don't understand. How can it help in catching regressions? The
> reduced test cases already get added into the test suite when a bug is
> fixed. The only possible benefit is in removing the need for Walter to
> add them.

I guess I shouldn't mix discussing benefits and methodology together. I believe a test driven development approach would result in more tests getting written. After a feature is coded, it's too easy to forget adding a test, or simply not write as many tests as needed to stress the feature.