[Python-Dev] on Python's tests (and making them better)

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sat, 7 Jun 2008 07:32:40 am Martin v. Löwis wrote:

> Flat is better than nested,
> and adding hierarchy will make it *more* difficult to find anything
> (except perhaps for the one person who did the rearrangement).

Do you have a filing cabinet with everything filed under "F" for File? 
*wink*

I've often thought that "Flat is better than nested" was one of the 
weaker Zens... often good advice, but nearly as often not. Lists of 
lists and binary trees can be useful. If you've ever used an operating 
system with a flat file system (and I have) you'll know what a pain it 
is dealing with the lack of hierarchical directories.

> I personally use grep to find the place where to add a new test.

I think, and this is just my opinion, that if you are forced to do a 
linear search through the entire test suite in order to find the file 
you want, that perhaps the test suite needs a tad better organisation.



-- 
Steven