[TIP] [Zope-dev] zope.testrunner and nose count doctests differently

[Michael Foord]

On 07/11/2011 19:51, Mark Sienkiewicz wrote:
> On 11/07/11 12:53, Chris Withers wrote:
>> The only hiccup is that nose doesn't respect a test_suite function by 
>> default, so I wrote a plugin to make it do the right thing:
>>
>
>>
>> Nose people: any idea *why* nose doesn't respect this method?
>
>
> I'm not directly involved in nose development, but since I have seen 
> you ask this question a few times and not seen an answer, I'll give 
> you my observation:
>
> The point of nose is to run tests without the complex interface 
> required by the original unittest.  In this case, it means you never 
> need to write a test_suite -- you write your tests with recognizable 
> names and the list of tests is constructed automatically.

unittest doesn't *require* you to write a test_suite either - the point 
of test_suite is to allow you to *customize* the set of tests that are 
collected automatically when a test module is loaded. So if you are 
providing a test_suite it is because the default automatic collection 
strategy isn't enough for you.

As a feature in unittest(2) it is a new (although it was taken from 
another project - zope.testrunner I *think* - so it isn't new per-se), 
which is why nose doesn't support it (yet).

All the best,

Michael Foord
> It seems to me that the most likely answer to your question is "didn't 
> think of it".  When using nose, I would never think of providing a 
> test_suite -- a big advantage of nose is that you don't have to.  So, 
> if I were writing nose (I didn't) or a similar tool (I did), I would 
> not think of looking for a test_suite.  The automatic discovery is 
> just too convenient.
>
> I think you can make a good argument that nose should use the 
> test_suite if it is explicitly specified:  "Do exactly what the 
> programmer said" is usually a good thing, and programmers who don't 
> want to deal with the drawbacks of an explicit test_suite should just 
> "don't write one".
>
> Mark S.
>
>
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