Parallel execution of unittests

[bearophile via Digitalmars-d]

Jonathan M Davis:

> Just because something is done in
> python does not mean that it is appropriate for D or that it 
> requires adding features to D in order to support it.

I agree. On the other hand now I have years of experience in both 
language and I still have this need in D.


> It makes no sense to me to make it so that
> any arbitrary module can be the main module for the program.

This feature is mostly for single modules, that you can download 
from archives, the web, etc. So it's for library code contained 
in single modules. In Python code is usually short, so in a 
single module you can implement many data structures, data 
visualization, data converters, etc. So it's quite handy for such 
modules to have demo, or even an interactive demo. Or they can be 
used with command lines arguments (with getopt), like a sound 
file converter. And then you can also import this module from 
other modules to perform the same operation (like sound file 
conversion) from your code. So you can use it both as a program 
that does something, and as a module for a larger system.


> Such code should be kept separate IMHO.

This means that you now have two modules, so to download them 
atomically you need some kind of packaging, like a zip. If your 
project is composed by many modules this is not a problem. But if 
you have a single module project (and this happens often in 
Python), going from 1 to 2 files is not nice. I have written tens 
of reusable D modules, and some of them have a demo or are usable 
stand-alone when you have simpler needs.


> Maybe even many of those who use python would; I don't know.

In Python is a very commonly used idiom. And there is not much in 
D that makes the same idiom less useful :-)

Bye,
bearophile