+1
On 16/11/06, Jahn, Mirko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi,
I was thinking a lot about this whole unit testing thing, after the
postings last week and I finally concluded for me that it might be worth to
further investigate this area and share some of my ideas with you all.
Before going deeper in this topic, I will first emphasis why the existing
solution don't satisfy my needs and some other approach is desirable. Here
are some (not all) features a testing framework in OSGi should offer from my
point of view.
- distributable as a pure OSGi bundle
- not bigger than a few KB (except the JUnit classes)
- different output possibilities based on test not only on the runner or
environment (like XML, Database, custom,...)
- service based
- compatible to JUnit 3 & 4
- dynamic and configurable (distinguish between different testing methods,
like "run only regression test, no installation or update", run every day
at 12pm all xyz tests)
- based on a standard or recommendation (f.i. naming conventions)
As far as I understood, all approaches, which are available out there
don't fulfill most of the mentioned criteria. The eclipse way for instance
is pretty full blown and lacks in terms of services and custom output
(Please correct me if I am wrong). By the way, does anyone know, if it is
possible to run the not gui based testing stuff provided by eclipse, but
based on another OSGi framework like felix, knopflerfish or other commercial
ones? This would be desirable too, if a customer is looking for vendor
support for instance (see sample later).
Some may say, ok - nice, but why do you need all that. Finding use case
for this requirements, is no problem if you just look into 24/7 application
(attach testframework and after testing, remove it again), server based
applications with user provided "addons" (testing the user submissions
before integration or usage) or the development statistics based on a
regression tests that have to be stored in a database every day. With a
smart and pure OSGi based framework, this can be achieved pretty easily.
I think, testing is in many areas pretty much underestimated. Of course,
there are attempts by Beck, Gamma, Link and all the other agile programmers
to introduce things like test first, but to be honest, I don't know any one
personally how really does it the way they claim it. Especially if you are
in a kind of time pressure in your project, depending on the company you are
in, only the features implemented count and not the tests you wrote to proof
the functionality (of course this is not always the case, but it is still
not something uncommon). I think this might be a reason, why there is still
no real satisfying solution for testing out there. If it is possible
to establish a sort of infrastructure for unit testing, it might solve a lot
of issues which we are faced almost every day, like reuse and seamlessly
integration of new tests into an existing test framework.
This is probably a long shot, but I was wondering, if it might be an
interesting topic for a short talk at the Eclipse Con (Don't get me wrong,
this is not intended to be a proposal at all, more a general question).
Things like possible scenarios for such an testing environment, including
the business values might be pointed out there. Based on such a talk, it
think, it could be even possible to set up a BOF discussion about topics
like:
- which services should be provided and how (naming conventions)
- how to distribute test code (fragment, extra bundle, two different
bundles,...)
- architecture ( testrunner, testresultconsumer, APIs, ...)
- core features
- possibilities how to align with the OSGi spec, like a OSS bundle, a spec
like recommendation, ...
The situation would be perfect, to get many people together and
participate in a satisfying approach for a wide range of developers. Where
else can you get that fast so much feedback and impulses?
As I mentioned above, this is a long shot and not intended to be anything
more than a starting point for a discussion. I think at the moment testing
is something, which most of us do, but the reusability of test code is
almost not existing in many cases and reuse of whole test environments even
in companies is pretty poor elaborated. With relatively few amount of work
it should be possible to at least come up with some general recommendations
concerning naming and API issues, to enable a OSGi like reuse of components.
I am looking forward to hear your comments on this.
Thanks,
Mirko
--
Mirko Jahn
e-mail: mirkojahn {_at_} gmail.com
skype: sooja-mj
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