From: Sean O'Dell <sean@...>
Date: 2004-06-13T08:12:50+09:00
Subject: Re: [ANN] celsoft.com/Battery 0.1.1

On Saturday 12 June 2004 13:34, David A. Black wrote:
> > arbitrary:
> > Determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or
> > principle.
> >
> > There is no fundamental reason tests should be ordered alphabetically.
>
> Maybe, maybe not -- but in either case, I was addressing your original
> claim, which was not that choosing alphabetical order over other designs
> was arbitrary, but rather that in Nathaniel's design, the tests were
> run in arbitrary (i.e., determined by chance, whim, etc.) order.  They
> aren't, so I wanted to let you and other readers know.
>
> This had (and has) nothing to do with the processing of choosing
> alphabetical order (which you introduced into the discussion later),
> but rather with the fact that alphabetical order is not, itself,
> arbitrary -- and, concommitantly, with the fact that Nathaniel didn't
> deserve to have his design misrepresented as involving something it
> doesn't.

When you're given no choice, as far as you're concerned as a library user, 
they're run in an arbitrary order.  The fact that it turns out they are run 
alphabetically doesn't change the fact that the system of ordering is 
arbitrary.  There is no rhyme, reason or principal determining the order; it 
was decided by the author at his prerogative.  If the tests were run 
according to the length of the method names, that would still be an arbitrary 
order.  As far as I'm concerned, the order that tests are run is a black box.

	Sean O'Dell