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Well, then maybe what they really need is a single server/farm out there that just goes through all the perl/ruby/whatever modules and installs them and runs th

Well, then maybe what they really need is a single server/farm out there that just goes through all the perl/ruby/whatever modules and installs them and runs their unit tests. That way you get the same coverage but you don't waste my time. I, personally, don't want a bunch of unit tests to run when I install stuff--it's slow enough as it is and it's (usually) completely redundant. It seems the same to me as slackware or one of the other "compile everything yourself" distros--they force you (the installer) to do a bunch of redundant calculations. If someone can compile on my architecture then why should I ever have to compile it? The same with unit tests--if someone can run the unit tests on my exact configuration then why should I ever have to run them?

btilly 16y ago
You still don't get it. If you're installing item after item, then the odds are that at some point you're going to install the dependencies, and after that the tests will pass and mean nothing. So you keep on wiping, installing one thing, and testing. Fine. Now you have cases where package A conflicts with package B and you never find it. And now what? The number of combinations to test is incredibly large, and nobody is likely to have tested your exact system. As for the unit tests, make them available, make them optional. That's OK by me. I'd opt to use them. Particularly since I learned the hard way that most of what I want in CPAN either isn't in Debian, or isn't up to date there. So I install things directly from CPAN. That means that when I install from Debian, there is a possibility of library conflict that I want to notice.
- caf 16y ago
  Perhaps a compromise would be to have the package-install-time unit tests run in "testing" and "unstable", but be turned off for "stable"?
  - btilly 16y ago
    That would be worlds better than what we now have. But I'd like the option to turn it on. (And I'm sure others want the option to turn it off.)
    - phaylon 16y ago
      I'm not sure what the -dbg packages in Debian/Ubuntu are strictly for, but wouldn't this be a case for it? If one could post-run the tests by saying "apttest Foo" or something along those things, integration into utilities to automatically install test packages and run them shouldn't be a huge hurdle.
      - joeyo 16y ago
        I can't speak as to whether or not it would be a good idea for -dbg packages to run unit tests, but their nominal purpose is that they contain extra symbols to allow for debugging. http://wiki.debian.org/DebugPackage http://wiki.debian.org/DebugPackage

btilly 16y ago

You still don't get it. If you're installing item after item, then the odds are that at some point you're going to install the dependencies, and after that the tests will pass and mean nothing. So you keep on wiping, installing one thing, and testing. Fine. Now you have cases where package A conflicts with package B and you never find it. And now what? The number of combinations to test is incredibly large, and nobody is likely to have tested your exact system. As for the unit tests, make them available, make them optional. That's OK by me. I'd opt to use them. Particularly since I learned the hard way that most of what I want in CPAN either isn't in Debian, or isn't up to date there. So I install things directly from CPAN. That means that when I install from Debian, there is a possibility of library conflict that I want to notice.

caf 16y ago
Perhaps a compromise would be to have the package-install-time unit tests run in "testing" and "unstable", but be turned off for "stable"?
- btilly 16y ago
  That would be worlds better than what we now have. But I'd like the option to turn it on. (And I'm sure others want the option to turn it off.)
  - phaylon 16y ago
    I'm not sure what the -dbg packages in Debian/Ubuntu are strictly for, but wouldn't this be a case for it? If one could post-run the tests by saying "apttest Foo" or something along those things, integration into utilities to automatically install test packages and run them shouldn't be a huge hurdle.
    - joeyo 16y ago
      I can't speak as to whether or not it would be a good idea for -dbg packages to run unit tests, but their nominal purpose is that they contain extra symbols to allow for debugging. http://wiki.debian.org/DebugPackage http://wiki.debian.org/DebugPackage