[Python-Dev] unittest's redundant assertions: asserts vs. failIf/Unlesses

[Steve Holden]

Antoine Pitrou wrote:
> Ben Finney <bignose+hates-spam <at> benfinney.id.au> writes:
>> That would better be written (preferring PEP 8 names)
>> "fail_unless_equal".
> 
> Which is still a double negative ("fail" and "unless" are both negative words).
> 
"Fail" isn't a negative. As Guido said, it's a description of the test 
behavior under particular circumstances. "fail_unless_equal" says quite 
clearly that the test requires equality of the values.

>> That's another reason to avoid "assert" in the name: these methods
>> *don't* necessarily use the 'assert' statement.
> 
> But all those constructs (assert, assertEqual, etc.) raise the same exception
> type named AssertionError which, if you care for naming consistency, is more
> important than whether or not they are implemented in terms of each other. :-)
> 
But the important behavior is the failure of the test, not the specific 
exception that is raised to fail it. Or would you prefer tests that 
raise other exceptions to succeed? The exception type is an 
implementation detail, and a fairly unimportant one as far as the 
purpose of testing goes.

regards
  Steve
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