Re: Should we test SHOULD?

On 23/09/2013 11:48 , James Graham wrote:
> Therefore I conclude that we should take option 1); simply consider
> "should" level conditions in the spec as untestable (for us) as other
> implementation-specific requirements on UI. If you really want to call
> out these somehow, I would be happy for people to write should.txt files
> describing all the should level conditions to guide people writing
> implementation-specific tests.

I would opt for a "modified (1)". By default, don't test SHOULD (they 
normally aren't testable) but allow people to use their better judgement 
and include tests for SHOULD in cases where they feel the specification 
was exceedingly cautious.

The issue of devices not being able to support some functionality is 
orthogonal, and should really not be handled by use of SHOULD in 
specifications. For instance, an eInk device won't render colour, but it 
would not IMHO be a good use of anyone's time to put all mention of 
colour behind SHOULD in any CSS module that relates to it.

For such cases test results are meaningless (beyond API exposure and the 
such) and ought to just be marked as such in the runner.

-- 
Robin Berjon - http://berjon.com/ - @robinberjon

Received on Monday, 23 September 2013 10:31:30 UTC