From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2019 06:25:00 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 01/18] t7107, t7526: directly test parse_pathspec_file()
Message-ID: <xmqq5zicde83.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqwoatcn5u.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>

Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:

> "Alexandr Miloslavskiy via GitGitGadget" <gitgitgadget@gmail.com>
> writes:
> ...
>> 3) Tests are indirect
>
> That cuts both ways.  For a developer who is too narrowly focused
> (because s/he spent enough time staring at the code), testing the
> underlying machinery in a more direct way does feel attractive, but
> at the same time, what matters to the end users is how well the
> feature, when integrated into the commands they use (not the test
> scaffolding like the "test-parse-pathspec-file" command), works.
>
> So "indirect" is not necessarily a bad thing.

Just to avoid misunderstanding, I am not opposed to adding tests and
test helpers that allows direct access to the guts of the machinery
to check the behaviour of the lower level codepath.  I am merely
saying that such tests would not make it unnecessary to have
end-to-end tests that validates end-user visible effects.

Thanks.