Re: Towards a better testsuite: Metadata

On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 2:24 AM, Florian Rivoal <florian@rivoal.net> wrote:
>> On Apr 12, 2016, at 02:56, fantasai <fantasai.lists@inkedblade.net> wrote:
>> If we'd like to make a distinction between a "title" and a longer
>> "description", then maybe we can adopt a convention similar to
>> commit messages: the first line, if it stands alone, is the title,
>> and the rest is the description.
>
> I am not interested in making a distinction between a short title and a complete description. I only want the complete description, and worry we won't get it if we call it title.

I'm in agreement with this—I don't think the title matters much. (The
title matters far less often than the filename does when it comes to
finding the file, really.)

>> I'd rather keep the metadata and its markup as simple as possible.
>> It should be easy to write a new test from a blank page once you've
>> written 2-3. It should therefore require as little typing and
>> memorization as possible; and <meta> tags don't facilitate this at
>> all because they're noisy.
>
> I agree with that goal to, and I am not quite sure what to do about the tension between these two positions. What you suggest is probably the way forward, but it still feels a bit wrong.
>
> Titles are mandatory, and we don't care about titles, but we care about something else, so let's just stuff it in the title. I can live with it, but it rubs me the wrong way.

I agree. I don't think we should put it in the title—I still don't see
*why* we care where test authors put the description, though. As far
as I can tell, the only thing anyone cares about is that the
description is there, so I don't see why we should bother to require
it be in any specific form. The policy for w-p-t is essentially that
the reviewer has to be able to understand the test—so a description is
there if it isn't self-evident, somewhere, typically in a comment. A
comment seems easier and more normal syntax for such descriptions than
anything else, and hence less to remember.

/Geoffrey.

Received on Tuesday, 12 April 2016 17:59:26 UTC