[SciPy-dev] the state of scipy unit tests

[Nathan Bell]

On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 3:38 AM, David Cournapeau
<david at ar.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp> wrote:
>
> Agreed. But you can choose not to run scipy.stats, right ?
>

That's right, and I don't currently run those tests.

But can a person who changes something in scipy.linalg choose not to
run those tests?

>
> Yes, but if you don't run a subset of the tests at all, you run into the
> same kind of issues anyway, no ? In Scipy, most packages are relatively
> independent from each other, so a 'fast' mode to check that you did not
> screw up badly (some import stuff, etc...) is enough most of the time.
>
> IOW, I prefer something where you have to explicitly disregard tests
> rather than explicitly include them.
>

I don't understand your argument.  You propose to make 'fast' be the
thing that developers run before committing changes to SVN and then
argue that this will lead to more tests being run?  Who runs the slow
tests?

If you make the default too slow, the *de facto default* will be
'fast' or None :)

Passing 'nosetests scipy' should be the standard for modifications to
scipy.  It should be as comprehensive as possible while running in ~60
seconds.  We can have an additional suite of 'slow' tests for
releases, build bots, and paranoid developers.

-- 
Nathan Bell wnbell at gmail.com
http://graphics.cs.uiuc.edu/~wnbell/