Re: Regtest changes phase 1 (issue 6454121)

[Phil Holmes]

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Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2012 7:15 PM
Subject: Re: Regtest changes phase 1 (issue 6454121)


> Sorry Phil, but I don't think this is an improvement.
>
> a) The original code comments explain much more clearly
> what is being tested than do your new marks.

But when you're checking the regtests, you don't see the code at all.  To 
make visual checking possible, there has to be a description of what you're 
looking at, not what the test does.  See something like 
autobeam-show-defaults.ly as a good example of this approach.  I've tried to 
follow this principle in the change I've suggested.

> b) Although the marks don't affect the test they do
> tend to mask the real tests and make it harder to see
> what is really being tested.
>
> I'd leave the code alone and expand the description if
> further clarity is needed.

When there's as many staves as there are with the test we're discussing, 
that would make the description very long and impossible to follow: "and the 
seventh stave has an ambitus added and a clef taken away" or somesuch.  Have 
a look at the collated-files for the current context-mod-with regtest, and 
compare it with the result from processing my proposed change, and ask 
yourself "Can I tell if either of these ran without error?"


AFAIK, the purpose of the regtests isn't to show clear code - it's to 
deliver code that tests a specific aspect of functionality, and where 
inspection of the output shows that functionality is working.

--
Phil Holmes