Shibboleth Developers

[Chad La Joie <>]

Walter Hoehn wrote:
> On Nov 17, 2005, at 9:28 AM, Chad La Joie wrote:
>
> > General comment.  I was specifically avoiding the user of terms  like 
> > "unit test" and "integration test", I didn't even want to use  
> > "functional test" but couldn't think of anything better.  I avoided  
> > them because people have different meanings for each of these terms  
> > and I wanted to avoid any semantic war.
>
>
> I think we needs these sorts of terms.  It doesn't matter so much how  
> we define them, as long as we all agree on their meaning.

Yes, once we know what we're actually talking about we can apply terms 
to them.  I haven't heard any more responses so maybe we've got that 
part covered now

> > Walter Hoehn wrote:
> > > I'm not one to argue against more testing, but I do think you  loose  
> > > testing value as you become less specific about what you  are  
> > > testing.  It becomes hard to understand exactly what you are  
> > > testing  and hard to trace problems to their root.  Having said  
> > > that, if it is  easier to do system testing on the SP by using  
> > > output of the IdP, so  be it.  I'm 100% not sure I buy this,  though, 
> > > since this limits you  to testing exactly what the IdP can  emit at 
> > > the time of the test.
> >
> >
> > I don't necessarily agree here.  I think if you try to use these  
> > higher level tests as way to provide test coverage for the lower  
> > level (individual class or subsystem) tests then yes, I think you  
> > loose value.  If you use these to tests that all the components are  
> > working together (i.e. that the sum of the parts isn't introducing  
> > problems) then you gain value.
>
>
> Maybe so, but there is almost nothing but overlap here, unless the  
> highest level tests are very minimal.

In the same vein then there is nothing but overlap between testing 
individual classes and testing something like the AA.  The tests at the 
higher level are simply to test that individually tested components at 
the lower level interoperate correctly.  It's almost always the case 
that as you get higher up the stack the tests become fewer, I would 
imagine the same would be true here.

--
Chad La Joie             315Q St. Mary's Hall
OIS-Middleware           202.687.0124