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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 q

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.
    - tomlockwood 4y ago
      I see, so if bad practices also discourage their future usage, things are fine. So if someone writes a bad test and it makes code refactoring harder, things are fine! Perfect!
      - Dylan16807 4y ago
        > So if someone writes a bad test and it makes code refactoring harder, things are fine! I said it's good to discourage bad practices. Unless you think refactoring is a bad practice, you have understood my comment incorrectly. But also you can remove the part about discouraging from the previous post, if it's confusing: Minitest enabled bad practices for a pragmatic reason. The tests were not following bad practices for a pragmatic reason, they did it by mistake. Enabling is less bad than doing, and minitest had a reason while the bad tests didn't. Therefore minitest doesn't suck and those tests do suck. Edit: fixed a couple typos
        tomlockwood 4y ago
        I think we should probably go back to what I said at the very start: "I've noticed a lot of developers that have this kind of code purity complex where their way of doing things is superior even if the actual code Works - which I think is the number one most important thing about code."
        Dylan16807 4y ago
        So that's calling them wrong about whether the tests are bad. Okay, fine, you can have that opinion. But there's no way to twist that around into "minitest devs are the ones that suck by their own logic". Either nobody here sucks at coding, or some test-writers suck at coding. But those are the only two options that make sense.
        tomlockwood 4y ago
        > So that's calling them wrong about whether the tests are bad. Okay, fine, you can have that opinion. What you're saying, is also just an opinion.

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.
  - tomlockwood 4y ago
    I see, so if bad practices also discourage their future usage, things are fine. So if someone writes a bad test and it makes code refactoring harder, things are fine! Perfect!
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      > So if someone writes a bad test and it makes code refactoring harder, things are fine! I said it's good to discourage bad practices. Unless you think refactoring is a bad practice, you have understood my comment incorrectly. But also you can remove the part about discouraging from the previous post, if it's confusing: Minitest enabled bad practices for a pragmatic reason. The tests were not following bad practices for a pragmatic reason, they did it by mistake. Enabling is less bad than doing, and minitest had a reason while the bad tests didn't. Therefore minitest doesn't suck and those tests do suck. Edit: fixed a couple typos
      - tomlockwood 4y ago
        I think we should probably go back to what I said at the very start: "I've noticed a lot of developers that have this kind of code purity complex where their way of doing things is superior even if the actual code Works - which I think is the number one most important thing about code."
        Dylan16807 4y ago
        So that's calling them wrong about whether the tests are bad. Okay, fine, you can have that opinion. But there's no way to twist that around into "minitest devs are the ones that suck by their own logic". Either nobody here sucks at coding, or some test-writers suck at coding. But those are the only two options that make sense.
        tomlockwood 4y ago
        > So that's calling them wrong about whether the tests are bad. Okay, fine, you can have that opinion. What you're saying, is also just an opinion.