Hello,
I've discovered that as my CGI::App projects goes in complexity, which each new change, it's more likely that some part of the project is affected in an unexpected way. (that is, a bug is inadvertently introduced :). Since the project is large, it's time-consuming to test all the functions of the project each time a tweak is made. Often if I choose to test areas that I think are affected, another subtle change in another area will be missed. Here are some ideas on how to address this: A. For each subroutine I change, I could systemically find every place it's called and try to generate an accurate list of all affected parts of the projects, allowing me to safely test just want needs testing. The problem with this approach, I think, is that even if I can find all the subroutines that use my affected code, the total number of possible data combinations that could be be passed through the system is exponentially large. B. Write a "testing bot" that would zoom through the system as a user might, systemicatly trying all the functions, and generating a report. There would be significant overhead in developing the initial system, and then I would have to be careful to keep it up to date with the code, _and_ worry about bugs in my testing system. What actually happens is "C"-- I do some testing on my home FreeBSD machine to make sure things look reasonable (nothing is exploding), and then I launch code on 2 or 3 personal installations of the project, where small failures are tolerated. After the code has passed "real world" usage on these systems (and any resulting bugs have been ferreted out), the process is repeated until it's perceived that there are no more bugs, and the code is released. And I suppose there are some other options to improve Quality as well: D. Have a project specification and keep it up to date to test against. If it's complete, and a third party should be able to use it to test the project completely, free-ing up the developer to keep coding. [ ponders for a moment. ] I think in my particular case, the issue may not be so much "regression testing" specifically, but resource shortage in general. If I had more time or people involved in the project, QA would happen more smoothly. Do other folks have QA procedures for complex CGI projects they are happy with? -mark --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
