Robert Walker wrote: > Brian Mcardle wrote: >> I'm still a relative newbie to RoR, but I'm finding it a very powerful >> tool. We have a couple of RoR applications up and in production, and >> we're making good use of the automatic testing to make sure they're bug >> free. >> >> What I would like to do is to test using the MySQL data our users have >> entered. Either using that data to create fixtures, or copying the >> production db into the test db on every test run. With the test db >> recreated on every run, obviously a standard outside dump won't work. >> >> This would be a far more comprehensive test than the few fixtures we've >> manually created. Is there an easy way to do this? > > Personally, I disagree with this assessment. If you're finding problems > with the data users are entering you've already failed them, and > possibly lost their business. > > I believe that it is our responsibility, as developers, to consider all > possible conditions that could make something fail. Obviously this is an > impossible task. There will be some edge cases that get overlooked. > > The reason I disagree with your proposed approach is that it could very > easily lead to developer complacency. Plan for zero failures by writing > examples to test every edge case you can imagine. Some will be missed, > however, I would deal with these on a case-by-case basis by ensuring you > back your testing with excellent failure notification. > > Also, plan for a comprehensive beta testing phase. For any notifications > you receive, write an example to cover whatever was missed. If you > fulfilled your part of the "contract" as a developer, by creating > exhaustive tests, then these reports should be relatively rare by the > time you go into production. If you still have a lot of failures in > production, then you simply haven't done your job. > > P.S. This response is very much an opinion, and you know what opinions > are often compared with. And, I really don't mean to be one.
Thanks for the thoughts. I certainly agree with the general thrust of your statement - that there should be a thoroughly complete battery of tests on an application (if I understand you correctly). But as you point out, this is impossible. We'll say I never thought of testing for non-English characters in certain strings. All my fixtures are English, all my tests pass. One of my users creates a record with a 'á' character... maybe nothing breaks. Maybe on a later upgrade, I add a new page, and that breaks. If I had a test that used the real data, including the 'á', I would've spotted this before deploying to production, and saved myself embarrassment. As it is, every failure gets covered by new tests or monitoring. I don't imagine these errors (those caught by db data tests) to occur more than once in a blue moon, but I believe testing with more than my manual fixtures will help me create a application with less bugs, and surely that's always a good thing? PS I do sincerely thank you for your opinion. RoR represents a new way of thinking, and of development for me. It's been a year, but some of it is still a little ...alien to me. -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en.
