[Python-Dev] PEP: Consolidating names and classes in the unittest module (updated 2008-07-15) (original) (raw)

Richard Thomas R.W.Thomas.02 at cantab.net
Tue Jul 15 16:00:30 CEST 2008

On Tue, Jul 15, 2008 at 2:48 PM, Ben Finney <ben+python at benfinney.id.au> wrote:

So far I have "precedent and tradition" and "positive admonition looks better" in support of preferring the 'assert*' names. Are there any others?

I've been told by a couple of non-programmers that "failUnless" is more intuitive than "assert" if only for the reason that its unclear what "assert" might do. This is similar to one of the arguments raised in the PEP, but considered from the point of view of someone new to test frameworks it could be all the more important.

On another note, while I understand that consistency is a good thing is it really that important in test suites? Obviously the unittest module itself should be internally consistent but why not provide people using the all the synonyms they might want? I can see people just wrapping TestCase to add the synonyms back in.

Richard

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