[Lldb-commits] [PATCH] D16334: Fix TestSignedTypes.py by removing a bogus step-over

[Jim Ingham via lldb-commits]

I'm not sure this is a terribly productive discussion.  

Since I know that the debugger is stateful, when I write a test where I get to point A and do thing X, I will often add - while I'm there - "step again and see if it still works" or something morally equivalent to that.  I have found that to be a method of test writing for debuggers that very often catches bugs.  The fact that this test will then break if "step" breaks doesn't bother me because a) this might be the only example where step breaks in this particular way, so that was actually a plus, and if something basic like step breaks we're going to fix it right away anyway 'cause it is step not working...

I am also not against writing more focused tests when that is appropriate.  But I am also pretty sure formal considerations are unlikely to outweigh this pretty consistent experience of writing tests for debuggers.  

Jim

> On Jan 21, 2016, at 11:54 AM, Zachary Turner via lldb-commits <lldb-commits at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
> 
> zturner added a comment.
> 
> Right, but I don't agree in this case that "different" has to mean "we
> discourage the use of reduced test cases".  I have a hard time imagining a
> scenario where not having reduced test cases is an advantage.  It's also
> easy to explain to people.  "Write reduced test cases".  It's easy to
> understand.  Moreso than "Reduced test cases are good, but not always
> because fuzziness, but we can't really put into words exactly what amount
> of fuzziness we want, or what it should look like, so I guess anything goes
> 
> - don't ask don't tell".
> 
> If we want fuzziness, we should do fuzz testing.  Feature tests and
> regression tests should be reduced.  The whole reason the tests in
> lldb/tests were written is because people were testing a specific feature
> or bugfix.  I don't see a reason to add fuzziness to this kind of test.
> All it does is pollute failure logs.  Fuzziness is better tested by fuzz
> tests.
> 
> 
> http://reviews.llvm.org/D16334
> 
> 
> 
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