Re: Are self-describing reftests required?

On Thu, 25 Aug 2011 17:10:57 +0200, L. David Baron <dbaron@dbaron.org>  
wrote:

> I think requiring that reftests be self-describing would be a huge
> mistake; in many cases it significantly incresaes (i.e., multiplies
> by a small integer) the amount of work that the test author has to
> do.

On the other hand, having just a cryptic rendering increases the amount of  
work any future user has to do when personally inspecting individual  
tests, analyzing failures etc. It's a tradeoff (kind of like spending  
effort commenting code,really). As someone who spends a significant amount  
of time both authoring and examining testcases, I certainly prefer  
striving to make them succinct and neat with regards to both code and  
visual appearance.

I don't think a hard requirement is appropriate, whether it regards pass  
conditions or the reftest format, but (strongly) preferring when possible  
seems good.

-- 
Øyvind Stenhaug
Core Norway, Opera Software ASA