Re: a few CSS 2.1 tests

I concur with Ian's comments have only two other quick short comments to
make:

1. serve the files as text/html for ease of trying them out in more browsers
 (alternatively, conditionally serve as application/xhtml+xml only if http
accept headers allow for it -- folks have documented this on the net.)
I know, this violates what is allowed for XHTML 1.1, but it helps usability
(a good tradeoff), and will only make a difference in browsers that don't
handle XHTML anyway.

Another possibility is to use content negotiation so that URLs without a
file extension, e.g.:

http://dbaron.org/css2.1/tests/t010403-shand-border-00-c

are sent as text/html to browsers that don't handle XHTML.


2. possibly add more <link rel="help"> tags for some of the tests.
e.g. your border shorthand test should also link to the sections on the
'border' and 'border-color' property in spec, because that's really what
it's testing, in fact, I might put the link to the border-color property
first since that's really what is being thoroughly tested.

I'm busy with prepping for my presentations at SXSW so I didn't do a
detailed review and will hopefully have more comments later.

Definitely a very nice start though.  Makes me want to write some tests.

Thanks,

Tantek


On 3/13/04 3:21 AM, "Ian Hickson" <ian@hixie.ch> wrote:

> 
> On Fri, 12 Mar 2004, L. David Baron wrote:
>> 
>> I just wrote a few tests [1] for 2.1 [2], and I'm interested in knowing
>> how I'm doing, especially with regard to the guidelines [3], and
>> especially from the authors of said guidelines.
> 
> I think those are the best tests I've ever seen.
> 
> My only comments -- and don't get me wrong; these are nit-picking
> comments, the equivalent of someone saying you should fix the spelling in
> a comment during a code review -- would be:
> 
> http://dbaron.org/css2.1/tests/t010403-shand-font-00-b.xht
> http://dbaron.org/css2.1/tests/t010403-shand-font-01-b.xht
>  Instead of "NOT be in a bold font" I would just say "be in a thin
>  font" or "be in a regular font weight", as negatives tend to make
>  understanding the test harder.
> 
> http://dbaron.org/css2.1/tests/t040102-keywords-01-b.xht
>  Instead of "This should be 10em wide.", I would just say "Test". This
>  is for two reasons: first, it is nigh on impossible to know how much
>  10em is anyway, and second, you want to have as few pass conditions per
>  test as possible, so that the reader can quickly establish the result.
> 
> http://dbaron.org/css2.1/tests/t040102-keywords-00-b.xht
> http://dbaron.org/css2.1/tests/t040103-case-00-b.xht
> http://dbaron.org/css2.1/tests/t040103-case-01-c.xht
> http://dbaron.org/css2.1/tests/t040103-escapes-01-b.xht
> http://dbaron.org/css2.1/tests/t040103-escapes-02-d.xht
>  I haven't yet put this in the public version of the guidelines, but
>  there are some assumptions you can make about the test environment:
>     
> http://cgi.w3.org/member-bin/process.cgi?method=url&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hixie
> .ch%2Ftests%2Fevil%2Fcss%2Fcss21%2Fguidelines%2Fguidelines.src&output=html#req
> uirements
>  In particular, you can assume the default text color is black, so there
>  is no need to explicitly set it in the tests.
> 
> http://dbaron.org/css2.1/tests/t040103-escapes-00-b.xht
>  You should make a third test line which makes no use of generated
>  content at all, and preferably change the sentence to a dummy one
>  such as "This is a test paragraph".
> 
> 
>> A few issues where I'm particularly unsure of myself are:
>>  * are my title elements good?
> 
> They seem fine to me. To be honest the titles aren't that important.
> 
> 
>>  * are my filenames good, especially regarding my choice along the
>>    a-b-c-d-e-f spectrum (for which the tests I wrote are perhaps an
>>    unusual case)?
> 
>  http://dbaron.org/css2.1/tests/t040103-escapes-05-c.xht
> 
> ...should probably be a "b" not a "c", but they seem fine to me in
> general. It's a judgement call, and the judgement is almost always going
> to be based on how many browsers actually fail the test -- my "Evil" tests
> from back in 99 when I was making the Evil Test Suite were simply the
> tests that everyone failed, as opposed to the Wet Blanket Tests, which
> were the tests that only a few people failed and thus "reduced the
> enjoyment of others", as it were.
> 
> 
>>  * is my lack of consistent wording a problem?  I've written multiple
>>    variations of the sentences "This paragraph should have a green
>>    background." and "The next two paragraphs should look identical."
> 
> That all looked fine to me.

Received on Sunday, 14 March 2004 17:26:23 UTC