Python advocacy for device testing?

[Cameron Laird]

In article <399E6762.FB9D81AA at ericcox.com>, Eric Cox  <eric at ericcox.com> wrote:
>
>
>redhouse at my-deja.com wrote:
>> 
>> So I am a python newbie. I have done a week or two of working through
>> exercises and read most of "Learning Python." I am trying to sell it as
>> a testing infrastructure language in my test automation group. Does
>
>One things that springs to mind is Python's ability to easily load source 
>code from a stream and compile/run it at runtime.  That would be very good 
>for doing regression tests.
>
>Eric
>

As Carter wrote in his original message, "The prime competition
is TCL ..."  Tcl *gleefully* reads and evaluates source at run-
time; in fact, one of the complaints about Tcl is that that's
all it ever does.  In any case, Tcl has an exceptionally strong
tradition of automating test operations.

So:  it's hard for Python to win on those narrow grounds.  Python
is equally able to read and evaluate, although it feels slightly
funnier in Python than Tcl.

HOWEVER, if you want to make quick converts in a "test automation
group", ask 'em which they find more natural:
  set total [expr $rate * $elapsed_time]
or
  total = rate * elapsed_time
?  That might be all you need to say.
-- 

Cameron Laird <claird at NeoSoft.com>
Business:  http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal:  http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html