On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 05:28:20PM +0100, Petr Šplíchal wrote: > Hi! > > During the last days there have been concerns raised regarding > what is an appropriate content for the tests namespace. [1] My > original idea was to enable sharing tests even across branches of > the same component, not only for tests to be used by completely > different packages. The initial examples might have been a bit > misleading in this respect. One of the main points still holds: > > > * Tests might follow a different branching pattern than the > > dist-git repo, leading to code duplication > > From the feedback from developers I feel they always keep on mind > and care a lot about the maintenance costs. So it perfectly makes > sense to me if they want to keep and maintain tests in a separate > repo instead of merging/cherry-picking between dist-git branches. > > When, for a particular package, it is the most efficient way to > maintain tests in a separate repo why should we discourage from > this approach? There are packages where it makes more sense to > store test code directly in dist-git. And it is still an option. > But why should we enforce this for all? My worries are basically that this mechanism is hiding the tests from the package maintainers. It splits the concerns between people maintaining the artifacts and people maintaining the tests, which is exactly what the original plan to bring CI was *not* about. The idea has always been to bring the tests where the code lives, so that both can be worked on as one, to make tests be a concern of the package maintainer very much like updating the artifact (rpms, image..) is, while getting support from QE for them (the tests). In addition, this is what I fear most: The tests for the package are stored elsewhere, we're not sure where (the tests namespace, a random git repo on the internet...), the packager update package and the tests fail. What do you think will happen? a) the packager will look for $random_place_of_the_internet where tests are and spend time trying to fix them. b) the packager will turn off the tests because they get in the way If the packager wants to turn off the tests, they will have to go through dist-git to do it, they may very well end up turning the tests off anyway, but if the tests are right there, they may as well have a quick look at them to see if they can fix them quickly before deciding. In addition, if the packager turn the tests off and the people maintaining the tests do not realize that, they will end up spending time maintaining $somewhere_else tests that aren't being used. Having them interact directly with the dist-git repo will increase the chances that they see/realize when something is turned off. If that means we have less tests in dist-git because the maintainers do not want them, I'd say so be it. In the long term this is their loss, they are the ones who will get the bug reports and will have to deal with them, they are the ones who will have to dive into old code rather than going back into something that is still fresh in their mind. As long as, it is clear that they have been approached and that it is their choice to not merge pull-requests adding tests, I think the people offering to help should not be the ones blamed. Pierre _______________________________________________ devel mailing list -- devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to devel-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
