From: Sean O'Dell <sean@...>
Date: 2004-06-12T12:25:17+09:00
Subject: Re: [ANN] celsoft.com/Battery 0.1.1

On Friday 11 June 2004 18:08, David A. Black wrote:
> On Sat, 12 Jun 2004, Sean O'Dell wrote:
> > On Friday 11 June 2004 11:47, David A. Black wrote:
> > > Hi --
> > >
> > > On Sat, 12 Jun 2004, Sean O'Dell wrote:
> > > > Battery is a unit testing framework for Ruby. It captures all
> > > > standard error and output and reports the entire summary of all tests
> > > > formatted as valid YAML, for easier reading and parsing. Another key
> > > > feature is that all tests run in the order they are added to their
> > > > batteries, rather than arbitrarily.
> > >
> > > You're implying, I believe, that Test::Unit runs the test methods in
> > > arbitrary order.  It doesn't; it runs them in alphabetical order.
> >
> > When tests are run alphabetically, it makes it tough to run the same
> > tests in specific orders.  I wanted to be able to take a single test, and
> > run it combined with other tests in varying orders.  celsoft.com/Battery
> > lets me create batteries in which I add the same test multiple times but
> > in the order I choose.
>
> I wasn't talking about the merits of one design or the other, just
> wanted to clarify the point that in Nathaniel's design the tests are
> not run arbitrarily.

Arbitrary meaning that, from a library USER'S viewpoint, the decision to order 
tests alphabetically is without reason and seems hastily settled upon.  
Perhaps the library developer had a good reason, but as a user of the library 
with different needs, I don't see/concur with the reason.

Anyway, if you like it alphabetical, you got one library.  If you like to 
order tests yourself, now you have another.

	Sean O'Dell