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From: Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com>
To: Calvin Wan <calvinwan@google.com>, git@vger.kernel.org
Cc: Calvin Wan <calvinwan@google.com>
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH 0/2] add an external testing library for unit tests
Date: Mon, 01 May 2023 22:18:50 -0600	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <64508f2ac80a5_1911029468@chronos.notmuch> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20230427175007.902278-1-calvinwan@google.com>

Calvin Wan wrote:
> In our current testing environment, we spend a significant amount of
> effort crafting end-to-end tests for error conditions that could easily
> be captured by unit tests (or we simply forgo some hard-to-setup and
> rare error conditions). Unit tests additionally provide stability to the
> codebase and can simplify debugging through isolation. Turning parts of
> Git into libraries[1] gives us the ability to run unit tests on the
> libraries and to write unit tests in C. Writing unit tests in pure C,
> rather than with our current shell/test-tool helper setup, simplifies
> test setup, simplifies passing data around (no shell-isms required), and
> reduces testing runtime by not spawning a separate process for every
> test invocation.

I agree unit tests would be very helpful, but they don't need to be written in C.

I sent a RFC patch series [1] attempting to write unit tests, but using Ruby, the
testing framework is less than 100 lines of code, and uses Ruby bindings to use
the C functions.

I think writing everything in C adds a ton of unnecessary complexity for no
gain. In fact some things are simply not possible, like dealing with crashes
without forks.

Modern languages exist for a reason: C isn't the best tool in every situation,
and I believe this is one of them.

Cheers.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/20230502041113.103385-1-felipe.contreras@gmail.com/T/#t

-- 
Felipe Contreras

  parent reply	other threads:[~2023-05-02  4:18 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 29+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2023-04-27 17:50 [RFC PATCH 0/2] add an external testing library for unit tests Calvin Wan
2023-04-27 17:50 ` [RFC PATCH 1/2] Add C TAP harness Calvin Wan
2023-04-27 18:29   ` SZEDER Gábor
2023-04-27 18:38     ` Calvin Wan
2023-04-27 20:15   ` Phillip Wood
2023-04-28 16:31     ` Calvin Wan
2023-05-02 15:46       ` Felipe Contreras
2023-05-10 15:46       ` Phillip Wood
2023-05-11 23:16         ` Glen Choo
2023-05-18 10:04           ` Phillip Wood
2023-06-21 15:57         ` Linus Arver
2023-06-26 13:15           ` Phillip Wood
2023-06-28 21:17             ` Linus Arver
2023-06-29  5:52             ` Oswald Buddenhagen
2023-06-30  9:48               ` Phillip Wood
2023-05-02 15:54     ` Felipe Contreras
2023-05-02 16:39       ` Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
2023-05-02 18:11         ` Felipe Contreras
2023-05-02 16:34     ` Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
2023-05-10  8:18       ` Phillip Wood
2023-04-27 17:50 ` [RFC PATCH 2/2] unit test: add basic example Calvin Wan
2023-04-27 18:47   ` Junio C Hamano
2023-05-02 15:58     ` Felipe Contreras
2023-04-27 18:39 ` [RFC PATCH 0/2] add an external testing library for unit tests Junio C Hamano
2023-04-27 18:46   ` Calvin Wan
2023-04-27 21:35 ` brian m. carlson
2023-05-02  4:18 ` Felipe Contreras [this message]
2023-05-02 13:52 ` Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
2023-05-02 15:28   ` Felipe Contreras

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