Unit testing (once again)

[Andreas Pakulat]

On 10.02.12 12:16:26, Milian Wolff wrote:
> On Thursday 09 February 2012 21:59:01 Miha Čančula wrote:
> > Yes, a plugin that implements ITestController can be set as required in the
> > desktop file, that's what I just did. Having more than one implementation
> > for something as basic as holding the list of tests doesn't seem likely.
> > 
> > 2012/2/9 David Nolden <zwabel at googlemail.com>
> > 
> > > I think this stuff should go into the project toolview, together with some
> > > proper filtering capabilities. We've already got far too many toolviews,
> > > they are a usability-mess.
> > > 
> > > The project-view could have some filtering-tabs or dropdown at the top
> > > with items like:
> > > * All
> > > * Sources
> > > * Changed (Replacement for VCS changes view)
> > > * Tests
> > > 
> > > Together with some nice color-annotations and maybe context-sensitive
> > > toolbuttons.
> > > 
> > > I think it's time to consolidate what we have.
> > > 
> > > Greetings, David
> > 
> > I tend to agree with this, since tests will only belong to opened projects.
> > If project managers are to be responsible for finding the test, why
> > separate them afterwards? However, it does require more internal changes,
> > so I won't go ahead without a consensus.
> 
> As I said, this is not true. PHP unit tests - and most probably many other 
> types of unit tests - require language knowledge and hence are *not* in the 
> domain of a project manager.

Writing unit-tests and potentially interpreting the result indeed
requires language-knowledge. But executing them probably doesn't, or
only very little. For example CTest tests can be using any
unit-test-framework for C, C++ even PHP if you want to use it for that.
Finding these tests is ctest-specific as is executing them. The results
may again require knowledge about the specific unit-test framework.

So I think tests should simply be done separately from both, but use the
interfaces that projectmanager and language support provide depending on
what the framework and plugins want to support.

Andreas