Beman Dawes <bdawes@acm.org> writes:
I think we need a major upgrade to our testing infrastructure. I'd like to see a machine (perhaps running both Win XP and Linux using a virtual machine manager) constantly running Boost regression tests. The tests should be segmented into sets, including an "everything we've got set", with some sets running more often than others. As previously discussed, one set should be a "quicky test" that runs very often, and that developers can temporarily add a test to that they are concerned about.
It seems to me, that a lot of time is taken by Boost.Build unnecesserily trying to execute the tests which have been failing before, even though files they depend on haven't changed. If this is fixed, it would make sense to set up continuosly running regression tests: clean once a day and the updates for the rest of the day. Regarding the dividing the whole thing into sets: The whole thing has 3 aspects 1. toolsets 2. libs 3. branches As I understand the main use case for "sets" would be to allow the developer to quickly see the effect of the changes he or she have made. I this case, wouldn't the ability to specify the toolsets/libs/branch to retest be enough?
I can round-up a donation of a nice modern machine to run the tests on. That isn't hard when powerful boxes go for $1,000 or less.
Plus the cost of the software - Windows + all the compilers (less for Linux). Our attempt to get some donated has failed (we've been trying to do that through standard sales channels). -- Misha Bergal MetaCommunications Engineering