3 ms·

If the API can be misused I think the snarky code purity response here might be to say the API is flawed, and the underlying mechanism that requires "misuse" ou

If the API can be misused I think the snarky code purity response here might be to say the API is flawed, and the underlying mechanism that requires "misuse" ought to be fixed. Also another problem is if the API can't sufficiently WARN developers when they're doing something dangerous. I think we all know there are already ways of doing this.

rgoulter 4y ago
> ... I think the snarky code purity response here ... I think if we can agree "taking on tech debt can be a good approach" and has dignity, we also have to agree that wishing for code without tech debt is also dignified. :o) Which is perhaps why the "I_suck_and" gets removed from this property. > If the API can be misused I think ... the API is flawed, and the underlying mechanism that requires "misuse" ought to be fixed. Which in this case would mean "minitest should only be able to run tests in random order". -- I think having an (inconvenient) option as a concession is a reasonable trade off.
- tomlockwood 4y ago
  > we also have to agree that wishing for code without tech debt is also dignified. I think then my question is how to achieve this wish given the realities of the production of working code as demanded by business. Is this really a realistic wish? I am yet to work for a company that had code and didn't have technical debt. I am yet to hear of such a company. > I think having an (inconvenient) option as a concession is a reasonable trade off. Exactly. Perhaps these specific minitest devs ought to have called their library "i_suck_and_wrote_a_testing_framework_that_allows_writing_tests_that_are_order_dependent_and_also_its_called_minitest". :D
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    I find it completely unreasonable that you would blame the testing framework here. No, that line does not make sense. It does the opposite of make sense: they made a very reasonable concession and you want to call that sucking? No. While code that needs this feature really does suck.
    - tomlockwood 4y ago
      Hey! I guess they should have just written code that didn't necessitate the need for this method, in the first place! Oh well, everyone has their flaws! The question is if they need to write "I_Suck" all the time as penitence.
      - djur 4y ago
        What necessitated implementing the method was that _other people_ were saying that random test order didn't work with their existing test suites (written for Test::Unit). Not only did the minitest author compromise and add this method for people unable or unwilling to fix their test suites, but he even wrote minitest-bisect to help debug ordering issues. I think this is more than enough from someone working as a volunteer on an open source project.
      - Dylan16807 4y ago
        > Hey! I guess they should have just written code that didn't necessitate the need for this method, in the first place! They did! It's not their code that necessitates it. The only way you can say they necessitated it is by omission, as in "they didn't write the code to fill this need people have, therefore the need went unmet". But that would be nonsense because seven billion people are guilty of the same crime. No, it's the people that wrote the code under test that necessitated the need. And those people are not the minitest authors.
        tomlockwood 4y ago
        I think I get what you're saying! It's fine to write code that allows for and enables bad practices when it suits a pragmatic need. We therefore totally agree.
        Dylan16807 4y ago
        Yeah! But it also helps to discourage those bad practices in the future. So when the minitest authors added this feature, they enabled the bad practices for a pragmatic need, and also did something to discourage it. On the other hand, when the people wrote those tests, they weren't writing them that way to suit a pragmatic need. They were just making a mistake. That's why the former doesn't suck, but the latter does suck. And the writers of those tests are not just enabling bad practices, they are directly performing the bad practices.
- djur 4y ago
  The context here is that Ryan Davis added test order randomization as a default feature to minitest, which was meant to be a mostly-compatible drop-in replacement for the old Test::Unit. Some people complained a lot about this and requested a flag to turn it off. I remember this being hashed out over some time on the ruby-talk mailing list: https://rubytalk.org/t/minitest-randomization/60387/3 https://rubytalk.org/t/minitest-randomization/60387/3 I think the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back was that Rails had order-dependent tests at the time. So Ryan added the flag, with his reluctance reflected by the mildly insulting name and doc comment.
- ulizzle 4y ago
  Wishing for code w/out tech debt is naive; not dignified. It's just the lesser of whatever two evils were going on at the time the code was written.

rgoulter 4y ago

> ... I think the snarky code purity response here ... I think if we can agree "taking on tech debt can be a good approach" and has dignity, we also have to agree that wishing for code without tech debt is also dignified. :o) Which is perhaps why the "I_suck_and" gets removed from this property. > If the API can be misused I think ... the API is flawed, and the underlying mechanism that requires "misuse" ought to be fixed. Which in this case would mean "minitest should only be able to run tests in random order". -- I think having an (inconvenient) option as a concession is a reasonable trade off.

tomlockwood 4y ago
> we also have to agree that wishing for code without tech debt is also dignified. I think then my question is how to achieve this wish given the realities of the production of working code as demanded by business. Is this really a realistic wish? I am yet to work for a company that had code and didn't have technical debt. I am yet to hear of such a company. > I think having an (inconvenient) option as a concession is a reasonable trade off. Exactly. Perhaps these specific minitest devs ought to have called their library "i_suck_and_wrote_a_testing_framework_that_allows_writing_tests_that_are_order_dependent_and_also_its_called_minitest". :D
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  I find it completely unreasonable that you would blame the testing framework here. No, that line does not make sense. It does the opposite of make sense: they made a very reasonable concession and you want to call that sucking? No. While code that needs this feature really does suck.
  - tomlockwood 4y ago
    Hey! I guess they should have just written code that didn't necessitate the need for this method, in the first place! Oh well, everyone has their flaws! The question is if they need to write "I_Suck" all the time as penitence.
    - djur 4y ago
      What necessitated implementing the method was that _other people_ were saying that random test order didn't work with their existing test suites (written for Test::Unit). Not only did the minitest author compromise and add this method for people unable or unwilling to fix their test suites, but he even wrote minitest-bisect to help debug ordering issues. I think this is more than enough from someone working as a volunteer on an open source project.
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      > Hey! I guess they should have just written code that didn't necessitate the need for this method, in the first place! They did! It's not their code that necessitates it. The only way you can say they necessitated it is by omission, as in "they didn't write the code to fill this need people have, therefore the need went unmet". But that would be nonsense because seven billion people are guilty of the same crime. No, it's the people that wrote the code under test that necessitated the need. And those people are not the minitest authors.
      - tomlockwood 4y ago
        I think I get what you're saying! It's fine to write code that allows for and enables bad practices when it suits a pragmatic need. We therefore totally agree.
        Dylan16807 4y ago
        Yeah! But it also helps to discourage those bad practices in the future. So when the minitest authors added this feature, they enabled the bad practices for a pragmatic need, and also did something to discourage it. On the other hand, when the people wrote those tests, they weren't writing them that way to suit a pragmatic need. They were just making a mistake. That's why the former doesn't suck, but the latter does suck. And the writers of those tests are not just enabling bad practices, they are directly performing the bad practices.
djur 4y ago
The context here is that Ryan Davis added test order randomization as a default feature to minitest, which was meant to be a mostly-compatible drop-in replacement for the old Test::Unit. Some people complained a lot about this and requested a flag to turn it off. I remember this being hashed out over some time on the ruby-talk mailing list: https://rubytalk.org/t/minitest-randomization/60387/3 https://rubytalk.org/t/minitest-randomization/60387/3 I think the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back was that Rails had order-dependent tests at the time. So Ryan added the flag, with his reluctance reflected by the mildly insulting name and doc comment.
ulizzle 4y ago
Wishing for code w/out tech debt is naive; not dignified. It's just the lesser of whatever two evils were going on at the time the code was written.