On Sat, Sep 07, 2013 at 11:13:10PM -0500, Felipe Contreras wrote:
> > If the reasoning is "cmp(actual, expect) makes more sense to humans"
> > then I do not think it is universal.
>
> No.
>
> ---
> A(ny) sanely defined "compare A with B" function should yield the
> result of subtracting B from A, i.e. cmp(A,B) should be like (A-B).
> That is what you feed qsort() and bsearch() (it is not limited to C;
> you see the same in "sort { $a <=> $b }"). The definition naturally
> makes "cmp(A,B) < 0" like "A < B" and "cmp(A,B) > 0" like "A > B".
> ---
Ah, you mean "if you think that the compare function should behave like
C *_cmp functions, it should be A-B". Perhaps it is simply that I do not
think of the function in those terms, but more like "show me the
differences from B to A".
> > Otherwise why would so many
> > existing test frameworks do it the other way?
>
> Which many existing frameworks do it the other way?
John mentioned JUnit, NUnit, and PHPUnit earlier in the thread. I
believe that Ruby's Test::Unit::Assertions also has
assert_equal(expected, actual).
> > Or any number of variations. I'm sure you will say "but those seem
> > awkward and unlike how I think about it". But that was my point; it
> > seems to be a matter of preference.
>
> Really? You think any sane human being would prefer:
>
> Computer, given that we expect B, how does A differ?
>
> To:
>
> Computer, compare A with B
I already said that is how I think about it. If you want to call me not
sane, feel free. But I do not see that this line of discussion is going
anywhere productive.
-Peff
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