Re: [RFC PATCH 0/2] add an external testing library for unit tests

[Calvin Wan <calvinwan@google.com>]

On Thu, Apr 27, 2023 at 11:40 AM Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>
> Calvin Wan <calvinwan@google.com> writes:
>
> > ... Unit tests additionally provide stability to the
> > codebase and can simplify debugging through isolation. Turning parts of
> > Git into libraries[1] gives us the ability to run unit tests on the
> > libraries and to write unit tests in C. Writing unit tests in pure C,
> > rather than with our current shell/test-tool helper setup, simplifies
> > test setup, simplifies passing data around (no shell-isms required), and
> > reduces testing runtime by not spawning a separate process for every
> > test invocation.
>
> Good goal, except that unit tests are not panacea---our ultimate
> obligation is to give a stable behaviour to the end users and
> end-to-end testing is still needed.  We would benefit from having
> tests at both levels.

Ah I seem to have misworded this section a bit. I didn't mean to say
that writing unit tests in C would replace our current shell/test-tool
setup. I meant to make the comparison between writing unit tests in C
vs writing unit tests with our current shell/test-tool setup. And I
agree that we would benefit from having
tests at both levels.