Comments on: No Small Changes http://blog.slickedit.com/2009/05/no-small-changes/ "Hello World" - The SlickEdit Developer Blog Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:18:34 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Scott Westfall http://blog.slickedit.com/2009/05/no-small-changes/comment-page-1/#comment-617 Scott Westfall Wed, 27 May 2009 19:20:54 +0000 http://blog.slickedit.com/?p=296#comment-617 It’s true that SlickEdit doesn’t have near as many automated tests as we’d like, but that doesn’t change the nature of the horizon effect. It just extends the horizon. Even with automated tests, you tend to test operations in the combinations that you expect to have a dependency. You have to conceive of the test case before you implement the test. If you are unaware of an interaction you won’t think of the test case in the first place. With the particular defect that motivated this article, we had a hard time reproducing it even after our customers reported it. But once we understood what was going on, we could reproduce it easily. While I am a huge fan of automated testing, I don’t think it would have helped in this situation. It’s true that SlickEdit doesn’t have near as many automated tests as we’d like, but that doesn’t change the nature of the horizon effect. It just extends the horizon.

Even with automated tests, you tend to test operations in the combinations that you expect to have a dependency. You have to conceive of the test case before you implement the test. If you are unaware of an interaction you won’t think of the test case in the first place.

With the particular defect that motivated this article, we had a hard time reproducing it even after our customers reported it. But once we understood what was going on, we could reproduce it easily. While I am a huge fan of automated testing, I don’t think it would have helped in this situation.

]]> By: John Hurst http://blog.slickedit.com/2009/05/no-small-changes/comment-page-1/#comment-616 John Hurst Wed, 27 May 2009 05:26:14 +0000 http://blog.slickedit.com/?p=296#comment-616 I'm also curious as to whether SlickEdit has an automated regression test suite (such as one built using JUnit). My impression is that automated unit testing has not yet caught on as widely in the C/C++ community as it has in the Java/Ruby/other communities. It is certainly a very valuable and powerful QA tool. However, it's quite hard to add unit tests retrospectively to a code base that is not designed for them. John Hurst Wellington, New Zealand I’m also curious as to whether SlickEdit has an automated regression test suite (such as one built using JUnit).

My impression is that automated unit testing has not yet caught on as widely in the C/C++ community as it has in the Java/Ruby/other communities. It is certainly a very valuable and powerful QA tool.

However, it’s quite hard to add unit tests retrospectively to a code base that is not designed for them.

John Hurst
Wellington, New Zealand

]]> By: Gary McGhee http://blog.slickedit.com/2009/05/no-small-changes/comment-page-1/#comment-615 Gary McGhee Sun, 24 May 2009 12:34:44 +0000 http://blog.slickedit.com/?p=296#comment-615 "When you are testing, you click all the buttons and try all the functions" Does SlickEdit not use unit testing like JUnit then ? “When you are testing, you click all the buttons and try all the functions”

Does SlickEdit not use unit testing like JUnit then ?

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