At Sunday 08 August 2010, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> * Stefano Lattarini wrote on Sun, Aug 08, 2010 at 03:11:13PM CEST:
> > At Sunday 08 August 2010, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> > > and I'm sorry there is such a high review delay.
> >
> > Well, I assume this is not done on purpose (right? ;-), so don't
> > worry.
>
> That depends on how you interpret it, I guess. Testsuite work
> doesn't add new features to Automake. We have only finite amount
> of time for Free Software. If we spend all of that fixing the
> testsuite, there will be no time left for new features or bugs
> outside of the testsuite. And yes, with "we" I mean your time for
> Free Software as well. :-)
All true; I'd just like to clarify some points and opinions:
1. For a "newbie", hacking/analizyng the testsuite is a really good
way to get accustomed to the overall functionalities of a software
package, which is IMO a prerequisite for modifying the software
itself (this is especially true if the testsuite has a low entry
barrier, like Automake's one does). So far, my experience with
Automake seems to confirm this idea.
2. Automake, in its current incarnation, is mostly feature-complete
IMHO (it still lacks a way to easily write non-recursive makefiles,
true, but it seems we are getting there finally). What it's really
needed is to make Automake *easily extensible* by third-parties,
like e.g. Autoconf is. Doing this, however, might require a heavy
refactoring/reorganization of the codebase, and for this a strong,
reliable testsuite is required. Well, that, and a lot of time, and
lot of community partecipation, and... you got the gist.
So I think that my time hacking the Automake testsuite is not badly
employed, after all. And it's kinda fun, too :-)
Regards,
Stefano
