Request for pre-review: std.serialization/orange

[Jacob Carlborg]

On 2011-09-30 08:39, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Thursday, September 29, 2011 20:58:30 Jacob Carlborg wrote:
>> * For the unit tests I've used my own kind of micro unit test framework
>> (that is included). Is that something we want to have in general in
>> Phobos so other modules can take advantage of that? Or should I just rip
>> out the framework?
>
> I very much doubt that it would be accepted. assertPred failed to make it in
> spite of the various benefits that it provided, and a number of folks seem to
> be against more complicated unit testing features making it into Phobos. Not
> to mention, there's already some discussion of the unit tests taking too long.
> We aren't going to want anything that adds yet more overhead.

That's why I'm asking. BTW, if we had a proper unit test framework it 
could be possible to run a smaller set of unit tests to keep the running 
time down to a minimum (not something my framework can do).

>> * The unit tests are located in its own package, I'm not very happy
>> about putting the unit tests in the same module as the rest of the code,
>> i.e. the serialization module
>
> Well, that's the way that Phobos does it, and it's essentially how D's unit
> tests are intended to work (though obviously, you can work around that if you
> really want to). Phobos' makefiles are set up with the idea that each module's
> unit tests are included in that module. I'm not sure that it's guaranteed that
> we wouldn't allow the unit tests to be separate, but that's not how any of the
> other Phobos unit tests works. And personally, I find that the unit tests are
> far more maintainable when they're right next to the functions that they test.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis

The thing is that just to do a simple test, like serializing an int, it 
requires some extra code. It's not like calling a single function. It 
requires:

* Something to serialize
* A serializer
* An archive
* Actually doing the serialization
* Performing several checks on the serialized data

BTW I don't think it scales to have the unit tests in the same module if 
you want to perform extensive unit tests or if it's a complicated module.

The unit test code should be equally well organized, readable and 
maintainable as the regular code. I think keeping it in the same module 
makes that harder.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg