True. Regressions tests do not guarantee bug are not introduced by changes. However, they are a fundamental piece of the QA puzzle.
--- On Thu, 7/23/09, Gregory Maxwell <[email protected]> wrote: > From: Gregory Maxwell <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Do no harm > To: "Wikimedia developers" <[email protected]> > Date: Thursday, July 23, 2009, 9:50 AM > On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 11:07 AM, dan > nessett<[email protected]> > wrote: > [snip] > > On the other hand, if there were regression tests for > the main code and for the most important extensions, I could > make the change, run the regression tests and see if any > break. If some do, I could focus my attention on those > problems. I would not have to find every place the global is > referenced and see if the change adversely affects the > logic. > > This only holds if the regression test would fail as a > result of the > change. This is far from a given for many changes and many > common > tests. > > Not to mention the practical complications— many > extensions have > complicated configuration and/or external > dependencies. "make > test_all_extensions" is not especially realistic. > > Automated tests are good, necessary even, but they don't > relieve you > of the burden of directly evaluating the impact of a broad > change. > > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
