On 2006-10-30 09:47+0100 Werner Smekal wrote: > Hi, >> >> One real problem is: how do we ensure we have checked the myriad of build >> options/environments? The notes on the Wiki are one thing, I guess, and >> the most >> systematic so far. > > One possible solution is provided by kitware (the creators of cmake) called > Dart ( http://public.kitware.com/Dart/HTML/Index.shtml ). It can be also > integrated in cmake scripts. Question is, if it is worth the efforts to set > up such a solution.
I think using Dart is an excellent idea. My understanding is the Dart client allows you to set up a nightly automated task to build PLplot, run ctest, and report results to kitware's Dart server (which in turn publishes those results on their website). Once one of the developers is successful setting up a Dart client (which I assume is fairly trivial), they should give the cookbook via the wiki to encourage/recruit Dart testers so that we will obtain as wide a coverage as possible for all the different PLplot platforms. Note, for now users on the bare windows platform will not be able to participate in reporting ctest results for PLplot using Dart because of all the shell stuff we have in the ctests. It will take some hard work to overcome that bare windows ctest issue, but those with Cygwin or MinGW platforms will certainly be able to run ctest and participate in Dart reporting. To answer Arjen's overall question, we have traditionally tested our software in a one-time way with our development releases since many of our users download and build those releases and give us feedback for any problems they encounter for their favorite platform. But I believe we should supplement that approach with Dart (for Linux, Mac OS X, Cygwin, and MinGW platforms to start and ultimately for bare windows as well) since that gives us much better time resolution and with a guarantee of exactly what was tested (the ctest suite of tests). Alan __________________________ Alan W. Irwin Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca). Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software package (plplot.org); the Yorick front-end to PLplot (yplot.sf.net); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net). __________________________ Linux-powered Science __________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ Plplot-devel mailing list Plplot-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-devel
