[Python-ideas] Add links in manual to test_modules.

[Antoine Pitrou]

On Sat, 19 Mar 2011 17:45:00 +1100
Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info> wrote:
> Nick Coghlan wrote:
> > Ick, no.
> > 
> > We do all sorts of dodgy stuff in our test suite to stress
> > implementations, probe obscure corner cases, double up on checks based
> > on where and when bugs happened to be reported. Large parts of it are
> > written to make the tests easier to write, not because they reflect
> > any kind of idiomatic code, or good ways of doing things in a real
> > application.
> 
> But surely a test suite counts as a real application? It's likely to be 
> bigger than the "actual" application or library, it still needs to be 
> maintained, and is more likely to have bugs (on account of there being 
> no test suite for the tests).

I agree with Nick, the test suite does not give "examples" of how to
use the APIs - and often it will actually invoke semi-private APIs in
order to easy testing. Claiming the test suite has any educational value
would be a disservice to our users. -1 from me.

Regards

Antoine.