[Cuis] Canonical test cases?

[Phil (list)]

On Tue, 2015-02-24 at 17:51 -0800, Ken.Dickey wrote:
> On Mon, 23 Feb 2015 14:43:26 -0500
> "Phil (list)" <pbpublist at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > I started playing around with a couple of example test cases to see what
> > I ran into and came up with a distinct class to store all of these per
> > test category (i.e. under Test-Files a class ApiFile which could have a
> > method testWriteTextFile)  The rationale was that it might make sense to
> > keep these test cases separate from traditional test cases which are
> > free to make calls that users of the class (i.e. who are calling the
> > supported API) should not.
> 
> You bring up a good point.
> 
> I suspect there are three basic cases:
>   [1] A number of small test cases for a wide, shallow API.  E.g. Collection classes.  Many "small" usage tests.
>   [2] A few deep calls which demonstrate a usage protocol.  E.g. open/read/close files, sockets; use library wrapper.
>   [3] Sample/example UI code which illustrate how to build apps/applets/tools  [Color Picker, File List, ..]
> 
> A test class, as you point out, is probably appropriate for case [1], where there would be a zillion test<collection><access>API kinds of things would swamp a name search.  A class naming convention would be good here.
> 
> Individual test methods, with a searchable name convention, would be best for [2] where there would be few illustrative usage tests.
> 
> We could call out example code in a README doc for [3] where examples might have auxiliary architectural documentation.
> 

Agreed.

2 was what originally got me going on this subject as that's where my
code seems to usually be breaking due to guessing wrong at what the
longer term entry points were.  I wasn't envisioning a kitchen-sink
approach to tests, just some basic 'here's the recommended way to use
this area of functionality' tests.

Unless Cuis evolves into a completely separate Smalltalk dialect, 1 can
probably be handled via traditional unit tests / categorization and the
numerous intro to Smalltalk tutorials out there.  3 seems like the point
where written tutorials (along the lines of what Hannes pointed out
earlier in the thread) and/or videos would best come into play.