Usenet 1994 January/usenetsourcesnewsgroupsinfomagicjanuary1994.iso/sources/std_unix/volume.31/text0012.txt

Text File | 1993-07-15 | 2.2 KB | 47 lines

Submitted-by: [e-mail] (Robin Fairbairns)

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Jeffrey Kegler) writes:
Jeffrey Kegler argues that test method *STANDARDIZATION* is harmful,
and claims that Bob Bagwill doesn't address this issue at all.

He then goes on to argue about his reduction of Bob's comments to:
"Test Suites are Good, Standards are Good, therefore Test Method
Standards must be Good."

Let's back off a bit, and consider why people standardise at all.  If
you look in BS 0 ("A standard for standards"), they have a section
on the development of BS 1 on varieties of steel rail for railways;
this standard reduced the number of varieties on sale from something
like 70 to 5.  Customers were served well, but not as well as they
would have been by the writing of a perfect standard, in which all the
vendors had agreed on just one variety.  The lesson is that in an
imperfect world, even small steps towards perfection are of value.

Now, test methods are never (in non-trivial cases) going to indentify
all potential problems with an implementation.  And, in an imperfect
world, one is always going to have the rogue around who says "it runs
OK past the standard tests, therefore it's _right_".

But (as Peter da Silva suggests) it's next to impossible to remove the
rogues from the marketplace by standards, anyway.  So what's wrong
with pooling the effort of defining a basic set of test methods, and
then publishing that effort as a standard?

The legal position ought to help, too.  My experience of test
standards (NB, not within Posix) positions them as part of the
procurement process: if I want to buy something, I may require a
vendor to provide a conformance certificate that shows that his
implementation satisfies a set of test criteria.  But if I have a
problem with the implementation once I've bought it, my contract to
purchase had better be written in terms of the base standard -
otherwise I've exhausted all legal redress by requiring the
certificate in the first place.

--
Robin (Keep Radio 3 != Classic FM) Fairbairns       [e-mail]
U of Cambridge Computer Lab, Pembroke St, Cambridge  CB2 3QG, UK


Volume-Number: Volume 31, Number 12