[Python-Dev] improving quality (original) (raw)

Neal Norwitz nnorwitz at gmail.com
Tue Mar 28 08:53:58 CEST 2006

We've made a lot of improvement with testing over the years. Recently, we've gotten even more serious with the buildbot, Coverity, and coverage (http://coverage.livinglogic.de). However, in order to improve quality even further, we need to do a little more work. This is especially important with the upcoming 2.5. Python 2.5 is the most fundamental set of changes to Python since 2.2. If we're to make this release work, we need to be very careful about it.

In order to do the best possible job and avoid silly errors, there shouldn't be any checkins which could change behaviour that do not include a test. I'm not talking about updating comments or string constants. But even trivial changes can cause regressions or incompatible changes. Just like failing tests, code checked in without tests is fair game for being reverted if there is anything questionable.

If you really can't figure out any way to test the change, please describe why in your checkin message. Just make sure it's true. It would be quite embarrassing to have your whole theory trashed when Uncle Timmy comes along 5 minutes later and checks in the test you just claimed was impossible. :-)

Cheers, n

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list