On Sep 12, 2006, at 6:54 PM, Adam Kennedy wrote:
[...]
That said, I've have come around a little on the subject of author
tests.
The one advantage they do have, is that their inclusion means that
while I may check POD structure, a pod.t ensures that in the event
of someone else taking over the module, these things will continue
to be checked.
But with that in mind, I still don't see much point in running them
at install-time, so lately I've modified my pod.t test so that it's
skip message is now "skipped: Author tests not required for
installation" or the like, and the tests now only run when
AUTOMATED_TESTING is on.
So now the tests will still get run during CPAN Testers and the
like, but regular installation will not be impacted.
That's fine, but in my opinion, a slightly better solution for author
tests is to include them in revision control (i.e. SVN) but to
exclude them from the public distro via MANIFEST.SKIP. That's what
we do for the Perl::Critic self-compliance tests, for example, which
are time-consuming and not relevant to the functionality of
Perl::Critic. However, your approach to author-test skipping works
well, and is more appropriate for modules which may not have a
publicly-exposed revision control system.
*shrug* I could probably be convinced that your approach is better.
Chris
--
Chris Dolan, Software Developer, Clotho Advanced Media Inc.
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