Re: DOM 2 HTML tests

On Sun, 2012-10-28 at 16:07 +0100, Ms2ger wrote:
> Third, they rely on such beautiful helper functions as
> 
> function assert_instance_of(type, obj) {
>      if(type == "Attr") {
>          assert_equals(2,obj.nodeType);
>          var specd = obj.specified;
>      }
> }
> 
> and assert_equals_list (which reimplements assert_array_equals, poorly). 
> I think we can all agree that such functions do far more harm than good.
> 
> Fourth, the tests were written for specifications that we've known for 
> almost a decade to be badly written, ambiguous and not web-compatible. 
> In the example above, incorrect assumptions are made about where the new 
> row will end up in the DOM tree, and (at least) Gecko fails the test 
> because it implements the specification we're supposed to be testing.

I believe the test you mention is the only example of this. I kept it
there because I wasn't sure and explicitly requested feedback on it. I'm
happy to remove that test. All the other tests are reported running on
at least one browser.

> For all those reasons, I propose to remove this set of tests from the 
> repository, and focus our time on writing tests that are actually useful 
> and correct.

So, those tests don't pretend to be complete in any shape or form. They
have the advantage that they exist, unlike the more exhaustive tests
that don't exist so far. So, I'm reluctant to drop them on the floor
until we have a replacement for them. You're correct that we shouldn't
spend a lot of cycles on them and should look into replacing them in the
long run, but those have the advantage that they test old part of html
where we are less likely to receive test contributions.

Philippe

Received on Monday, 29 October 2012 13:34:28 UTC