Ascend Archive
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RE: (ASCEND) 5.0Ap34
On 23 November 1997 21:14, Jason Eggleston [SMTP:jason@jet.net] wrote:
> Kevin Smith wrote:
> >
> > as we can with a lab environment). Only full releases, like 6.0 will
> > get a full regression test suite.
>
> Why?
I think that the need to ask this question says much in itself. A "full"
regression test (that I must say normally is pointless, as problems still get
through) is something that takes some considerable time to complete (weeks to
months) and the number of tests and reports should reach (for a unit the
complexity of the MAX) some hundreds or thousands of different tests in
different environments.
The user community (us) need changes, fixes and new features much quicker
than this, and so a "weekly" release cycle (or is it bi-weekly now Kevin ?)
means that only the most rudimentary "functional" testing can take place. The
idea of the patch branch is to change as little as possible, so that the
regression tests done on the original release will be "mostly" valid, and
only small, focused changes to the source base will happen. The incremental
branch gets a quick "Does this boot up and connect calls ?" type testing, but
it is down to the user to do the final satisfaction testing in their own
environment. If you cannot afford either the time or the money to have your
own adequate test facilities then get out of the kitchen, 'cause it gets hot
in here.
Those users (typically corporates) who need a very defined set of functions
should not be interested in incremental releases, just patches to fix known
problems. In most cases this group of users can wait the 6 months or so
between full releases anyhow.
Peter
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