[Python-Dev] Looking for a Windows bsddb fan

[Tim Peters]

[martin@v.loewis.de]
> I suggest not to worry about this too much. I get the impression that
> the bsddb3 test suite is quite harsh, and that it makes assumptions
> (e.g. about how threads interleave) that hold only on the system of
> the author of the test.

It clearly shows timing-dependent behavior.  The tests all passed on Win2K
(once <wink>), so I checked it in.

> It also seems that once a test failed in an unpredicted manner (e.g. by
> not giving back a lock it holds), subsequent tests will fail.

Easy to believe.

> I have settled to wait for user cooperation, here: the "plain" bsddb
> modus seems to work fine, the problems only occur if you use advanced
> features like locking and transactions. If people stumble over it,
> some may contribute patches for 2.3.1.
>
> Before someone complains about this attitude: ...

Not me.  It would be better if the tests were robust, but I realize it can
be supernaturally difficult to achieve that (at PLabs we write and run tests
for ZODB and ZEO too -- sporadic failures are a fact of life, and often due
to the difficulty of writing controlled multi-threaded tests).