Re: UAs passing tests if they don't implement a feature

On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 10:43 AM, fantasai
<fantasai.lists@inkedblade.net> wrote:
> Are they easier to review, update, and create and compare derivations
> also? (As I said, these are not write-only tests.) It's easier to write
> tests without indentation, too. But harder to read them later.
>
> I have seen some tests by bzbarsky that used the style attribute,
> and were easy to read and understand. But they had 1-2 declarations
> on each element, and only a few elements with styles.
>
> In my experience, I've found it easier to work on tests with the
> style declarations in <style>, where they can be written out with
> indentation and comments, and can be easily refactored.

The question is, is this enough justification to require preexisting
tests to be rewritten?  It's one thing to request particular
formatting for tests that were written a priori for the CSSWG test
suite.  It's another thing to refuse to accept existing tests because
of it.

Could we create a category of "should" requirements, put all the
stylistic guidelines there, and say that submitters are asked to
follow them for new tests but that they aren't grounds for rejecting a
test in themselves?  An example of a test I wrote before reformatting:

<!doctype html>
<link rel=match href=table-4-ref.html>
<style>table, tbody, tr, td { margin: 0; padding: 0; border-spacing: 0 }</style>
<!-- preserve-3d is on every intervening element, so this shouldn't vanish -->
<div style="transform: rotatex(90deg); transform-style: preserve-3d">
    <table style="transform-style: preserve-3d">
        <tbody style="transform-style: preserve-3d">
            <tr style="transform-style: preserve-3d">
                <td style="transform-style: preserve-3d">
                    <div style="transform: rotatex(90deg)">Some text</div>
    </table>
</div>

Leave aside the non-stylistic issues (lack of <title> and <meta
name=assert>, for instance).  Is this really so unreadable that it has
to be rewritten?  It's twelve lines long.  I really don't think that
it will take anyone more than twenty seconds to read through it.
We're not talking about spaghetti code here.  I don't think it makes
sense to reject this kind of thing outright.

Received on Sunday, 24 June 2012 12:42:57 UTC