Fwd: moving the test suite?

On this morning's call I took an action to take a snapshot of the 
XSD test suite.  In preparing for that task, I reviewed some old
email relating to the test suite and came across the proposal
below, which was sent to the IG and the test suite list a while ago,
but on which the WG did not then take action.

Now seems like a very good time to move the test suite to a
server where we can make it browsable, so I'd like to repeat the
proposal.  

The request for discussion I made when first sending this didn't
produce much discussion, only a wry comment from Michael Kay
about difficulties using Hg, which I took to be a cautionary note but
not a veto.  So this time I will again invite discussion and WG decision,
but I'll also say:

If I don't hear any objections to this plan by the end of January 2012, 
I will proceed with the plan outlined below.

-CMSMcQ


Begin forwarded message:

> Resent-From: w3c-xml-schema-ig@w3.org
> From: "C. M. Sperberg-McQueen" <cmsmcq@blackmesatech.com>
> Date: October 19, 2010 3:22:23 PM MDT
> To: W3C XML Schema Interest Group <w3c-xml-schema-ig@w3.org>, public-xml-schema-testsuite@w3.org
> Cc: "C. M. Sperberg-McQueen" <cmsmcq@blackmesatech.com>
> Subject: moving the test suite?
> 
> Discussion and WG action requested on the following.
> 
> I've inquired with the W3C systems group, and they remain unwilling
> to give consent to any plan for the XSD test suite that would involve
> checking the individual test files into CVS and making them and their
> history available on the Web through cvsweb (as is now done for the
> metadata and some but not all test cases in XSDTS, on the machine
> dev.w3.org).
> 
> They are happy, however, for us to move the test suite to test.w3.org,
> and allow the individual test files to be browsed and served from there,
> provided we use Mercurial (hg) to maintain it, rather than CVS.
> 
> This seems to entail a certain amount of work and planning on our 
> side; I'm sending this both to the test suite discussion list and the XML 
> Schema Interest Group list.  To help structure our discussion and 
> decision on the relevant questions, I make the following concrete
> proposal.
> 
> (1) We should move the test suite to test.w3.org and do our best
> to make it easy to browse and search in its new location.
> 
> (2) The existing test suite materials on dev.w3.org should remain in
> place, but README files should be placed in relevant locations
> (at least the top level, and possibly in every directory) saying that
> as of (some date in) 2010, the version of the test suite on dev.w3.org
> is no longer being maintained, and that active work has moved to
> test.w3.org. 
> 
> (3) As the last thing before the move, we should take a snapshot of
> the current test suite.  (For concreteness, the discussion below assumes
> that we do that on 30 November 2010.  I'm open to trying to do it
> sooner, or to delaying until later.)  That snapshot will be installed
> next to the others, in (a subdirectory of) the directory
> 
>  http://www.w3.org/XML/2004/xmlschema-test-suite
> 
> (4) The skeleton of the current test suite directory structure is:
> 
> - Root directory (hereinafter $ROOT) at 
> http://dev.w3.org/XML/xml-schema-test-suite/2004-01-14/
> (or http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/XML/xml-schema-test-suite/2004-01-14/)
> 
> - $ROOT/*.html:  miscellaneous documentation (the canonical versions
>    of which were all moved to www.w3.org/XML/2004 three years ago)
> 
> - $ROOT/XMLSchemaTests:  tests from NIST (superseded by later
>    NIST contributions?)
> 
> - $ROOT/resources:  some images used for HTML documents
> 
> - $ROOT/xmlschema2002-01-16:   I do not understand what is here;
>    appears to be (a) a tarred and gzipped version of the test suite,
>    plus full (or partial?) test cases and result reports
> 
> - $ROOT/xmlschema2004-01-14:  not sure what's here; appears
>    to be a fully unpacked version of NIST tests
> 
> - $ROOT/xmlschema2006-11-06:  contains all and only things in
>    the test suite which have changed since the snapshot contained
>    in http://www.w3.org/XML/2004/xml-schema-test-suite/xmlschema2006-11-06/xsts-2007-06-20.tar.gz
> 
> I propose:
> 
> (a) to leave xmlschema2002-01-16, xmlschema2004-01-14, and 
> xmlschema2006-11-06 where they are.  They will NOT be copied
> to the new location; instead, the documents at the new location will
> point to them in their current location.  If possible, the documentation
> will explain what they are and how to use them, but that will involve
> someone explaining it to me; in the short term the pointer will just
> refer vaguely to 'versions of the test sutie prior to 2010' and let
> the user figure it out or not.
> 
> (b) to give the new location the same structure as currently 
> possessed by xmlschema2006-11-06, with the following exceptions:
> 
> - The root directory will contain a short top-level welcome document
> (Overview.html or index.html) pointing to further documentation at
> various locations, the top-level description of the test suite 
> (suite.xml), and *Meta and *Data directories for each contributor. 
> It will not contain any other files or documents.
> 
> - The coverage report, introspection test set, etc., will be in ./common
> 
> - The existing change logs will not be retained.  Any new change logs
> will go into ./common or ./changelogs
> 
> - The *.testSet and *.suite documents will point to the $ROOT/commons
> directory for the XSTS schema; the local copies will be removed.
> 
> This has the consequence that it will not be convenient to check out
> just the fooMeta and fooData directories for some contributor foo, 
> in order to have a full working test suite.  I assume most users of the
> test suite will check out the whole thing, not just individual contributors'
> work.  Users who do want just one or two individual contributions
> will need to check out the commons directory, too.
> 
> - XML stylesheet processing instructions will be added to all *.testSet 
> and *.suite documents, so they can conveniently be browsed using
> a current HTML browser.  
> 
> - The stylesheet for testsets may be modified to make its output look
> more like the existing HTML documents provided for the NIST
> contributions.
> 
> - The HTML files included with the NIST contribution will be dropped.
> 
> - The NIST testSet document (9 MB) will be broken up into separate
> testSet documents to make it more perspicuous, using the current 
> HTML documents as a guide.
> 
> (5) We need to choose a name for the top-level directory on test.w3.org.
> I propose xsd-test-suite (alternatives:  xsdts, xsts).
> 
> (6) We will need to update all documentation on the W3C site that
> points to the test suite to point to the new location.
> 
> (7) We will need to decide as a WG who has write access to the
> Mercurial repository.  Four obvious possibilities:
> 
>  (a) members of the WG
>  (b) members of the test suite task force
>  (c) the union of (a) and (b) 
>  (d) some subset of (b), to be specified
> 
> (8) Some of us will need to learn to use Mercurial.
> 
> Those who do not now actively use Mercurial may wish to consult 
> one of the many tutorials on the Web.  I can recommend the one
> by Joel Spolsky (http://hginit.com/) particularly for those who, like me,
> have spent enough time working with CVS and Subversion to have
> internalized the CVS/Subversion model as the way to think about
> versioning systems; Spolsky discusses the issues of mental model
> explicitly and helpfully.
> 
> -- 
> ****************************************************************
> * C. M. Sperberg-McQueen, Black Mesa Technologies LLC
> * http://www.blackmesatech.com 
> * http://cmsmcq.com/mib                 
> * http://balisage.net
> ****************************************************************
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

-- 
****************************************************************
* C. M. Sperberg-McQueen, Black Mesa Technologies LLC
* http://www.blackmesatech.com 
* http://cmsmcq.com/mib                 
* http://balisage.net
****************************************************************

Received on Saturday, 21 January 2012 01:45:12 UTC