On Wed, Jul 26, 2000 at 08:51:18PM -0400, Chaim Frenkel wrote:
> I'd like to reject the philosophy. I'd prefer that the language define
> perl. I.e. not an implementation. Rather the spec.
>
> Shouldn't the tests be designed from the spec?
Spec? What spec? Perl has a spec?
At the moment, Perl has no formal specification. Perl doesn't even
have an informal specification. The existing regression suite is very
incomplete. The documentation is also incomplete and in some cases
wrong. The auto-generated API docs are also incomplete. I'm not
complaining, I'm just stating facts.
There is currently NO WAY for anyone to rewrite perl5 and know that
their implementation is complete. This is what I mean by the
regression tests becoming a spec. By applying a test to every patch
you have a test for every language feature, every internal function
and every statement asserted by the documentation. You then have a
way to verify that perl is perl.
Now, if Perl 6 decides it wants a formal spec then that's just hoopy
with me. However, we will treat it like any other set of
documentation and write tests for it. (In fact, we could probably
automate it.) That particular testing suite would be applied to
alternative implementations to verify their accuracy.
However, I would still like to enforce one test/one patch in that
case. Why? Partially for psychological reasons. Keep testing and
quality in everyone's face. You also still need to test the
documentation. Also, having three redundant sets of regression tests
(docs, implementation, spec) each written by a different subgroup
reduces the chance we'll make a mistake in testing and let a bug slip
through. Never hurts to have nets for your nets.
So to sum up, if Perl 6 wants a formal spec, then that's the spec.
But we'll always have the regression suite to fall back on.
PS I'm trying to keep QA RFC discussions on perl-qa rather than
bootstrap.
--
Michael G Schwern http://www.pobox.com/~schwern/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Just Another Stupid Consultant Perl6 Kwalitee Ashuranse
Maybe they hooked you up with one of those ass-making magazines.
-- brian d. foy as misheard by Michael G Schwern
