Hi all,
concerning the implementation of automated tests, I can speak only for the
situation in the JWT workflow editor. As has been already mentioned by Marc
and Florian there are currently no tests available. Since a large part of
the WE consists of the management of the graphical interface, the test cases
could - in my opinion - be limited to the actual logical layer, that carries
out manipulations on the workflow model, since the user interface is subject
to rapid change and the maintenance of tests in this field would require a
lot of attention. I'd like to share a few thoughts about the situation in
the different parts of the WE:
The EMF Model
The transformation of the meta model into java classes and the management of
the contents is done by the eclipse modeling framework, so there are
basically no important test cases present (at least none I can think of at
the moment).
The GEF Layer
The meta model is linked with the GEF elements. Since the manipulations of
the model by GEF is a very complex process that depends heavily on the
implemented routines, which have to be adapted when altering or adding
elements to the meta model, this layer is possibly the most interesting for
formulating automated tests.
I'm thinking of test cases which simulate the interaction of a user with the
UI elements. Definitely useful in my experience would be complex use cases
that carry out all available actions in as much different combinations as
possible, e.g. creating/saving/opening a model file and use
create/select/copy/delete/paste/redo/undo (GEF) commands on the model
objects.
The Plugin Interface and Graphical UI
In my experience, manipulations of the plugin part and the non-GEF part of
the UI affect mostly isolated parts of the code and can (and have to) be
debugged during the implementation process.
Best Regards,
Christian
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: jwt-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jwt-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] Im
Auftrag von Mickael Istria
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 30. April 2008 17:26
An: Java Workflow Toolbox
Betreff: Re: AW: [jwt-dev] Tests and unit testing in JWT ?
Hi all,
Here are some of my thoughts about testing.
JWT does not currently integrate automated tests. That will imply to
spend some time debugging what we currently have in the future. However,
it is too late to change it, so that there is no interest in adding
tests now.
Alexandre Boutin spoke about a "technical debt". Actually, that means
that when we write code without tests (even when the code works) we will
have to spend time debugging later, for example we will modify it. With
this approach we can consider that JWT has a debt that will have to be
paid in the future. What we can do now is to prevent this debt from
become larger and larger. If we let this debt become too large, one day
we won't be able to pay it (and then the project won't be extensible or
maintainable any more).
The strategy with the current debt is to pay it when necessary, that
means when modifying current code.
This comparison with a debt is interesting. I admit it is very
"business-oriented", and that it is not perfectly convenient with JWT,
but I think that what he calls a debt is equivalent to the ability to
progress in our case.
Indeed, if the "debt" becomes too big, JWT won't attract other
committers (because coding in JWT will become a difficult puzzle, and
will require more time), won't react quickly enough to new use cases,
and won't go ahead. Tests anticipate this situation.
About bugs, we can consider that "1 bug fixed = 1 patch + 1 automated
test". This could become a convention before closing a bug in the bugzilla.
About testing the UI... Maybe there is nothing to allow this now. But we
can still try... ;)
We can at least write some unit tests with classes that are independent
from Eclipse runtime. We can also learn how to write mock classes to
replace Eclipse runtime.
I'll try to find some interesting things about continuous integration
and automated tests in PDE. And I promise my next commit will contain
some tests!
Best Regards,
Mickael
Florian Lautenbacher a écrit :
Hi Marc,
thank you for this post. Yes, you are right - currently there are no tests
for JWT WE (I made a few of them myself, but actually I'm not an expert in
how to write tests, especially for graphical modeling environments such as
GEF). I'll read through the chapter of the Gamma & Beck book and will have
a
look whether we can start implementing some tests without neglecting the
next features and fixing bugs...
Any assistance here is of course always welcome :-)
I agree with you (and Alexandre Boutin) that at least every time something
has been broken, one should add some tests after fixing it in order to
make
sure it won't break again.
Best regards,
Florian
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: jwt-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jwt-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] Im
Auftrag von Marc Dutoo
Gesendet: 30 April 2008 15:31
An: Java Workflow Toolbox
Betreff: [jwt-dev] Tests and unit testing in JWT ?
Hi all
The issue of tests and how to do unit testing in JWT is of interest for
the
core development team as well as anybody wishing to use JWT for his own
purpose.
So what do you think about tests and unit testing in JWT ?
As a starter, I've tried to compile a few answers here - feedback welcome
!
JWT tests status :
* none in WE, many but not yet automated in Transformations, junit
tests
in runtime parts (but their impl is generally not jwt per se since not
available on eclipse because of license issues)
Unit testing
* for unit tests of eclipse plugins, use pde.junit plugin (from jdt ui
page). In addition to executing junit tests, it takes care of initializing
an eclipse workspace, as required by eclipse plugins.
* "httpunit-like" tools are scarce and far from useful in the field of
heavy client UIs. Some of my colleagues had a little bit of experience
with
such IBM tools targeting Swing UIs back then, and say that writing tests
was
far more cumbersome and long than writing the UI itself -_-
* hence nothing car replace functional testing (test plans etc.) to
know
a UI is not broken in use or impl - though a good architecture (like emf -
gmf - extension points - common patterns etc.), development and
integration
methodology, limits risks.
* more about testing eclipse plugins : see the excellent gamma & beck
book, and especially its chap12 that is freely available here
http://today.java.net/today/2004/02/02/ch12Eclipse.pdf
So what if you want to make your own tooling by extending JWT, and you'd
like to have some level of trust in the fact that a given release of JWT
is
not broken, or that your extensions are not breaking it ? According to
Alexandre Boutin (main french advocate of Lean Programming),
* it would not be business-savvy to spend time writing tests for
existing
code. If code exists without tests and you trust it, use it so.
* But if it breaks at some point, then add tests ensuring it won't
break
the same way anymore.
Regards,
Marc
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