Why?

[Fairlight]

On Wed, Jun 30, 2004 at 10:14:05PM -0400, after drawing runes in goat's blood,
Bill Vermillion cast forth these immortal, mystical words:
> Shakespeare wrote plays and sonnets that will last an eternity, 
> but on Wed, Jun 30 16:05 , Jay R. Ashworth wrote:" 
> 
> > At least, though, whether to invest in the regression testing of your
> > app against the upgrade should be your choice.
> 
> I think regression testing is a lost art.  I mentioned it to
> someone I considered knowledgeable a year or so ago and they
> say "what's that".

Actually, I had to look it up as a technical term.  That's how I got onto
the Brainboost.com thing tonight.  That said, when I found out that it
meant what I -thought- it meant--I have to ask, "Who the hell -doesn't- do
it, and why?"  When I change something, I'm -terribly- paranoid that it may
have broken things that are especially closely bound to the functionality
in question, and just the entire functionality in general.  This is
probably why some of my "beta" releases (for years running) are more stable
than some people's release code.  I test it as far as I can in-house.  Then
I get someone else to try and break it.  Then I test some more.

Did I know it by name?  No.  But I do practice it, and always have.
Sometimes automated, sometimes manual.  Depends on the project.  But I
-always- test after making changes.  If it doesn't work, it won't leave
until I'm satisfied with it.

> I remember a lot of early programs from such places as
> comp.unix.sources [now generically called open source] that had
> regression testing routines built in.   You don't see things like
> that very often now.

Many perl modules will test themselves for various functionality when they 
install.  If it fails, it refuses to install unless you force it to.  It's
still done in some arenas.

mark->
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