1 Nov
2007
1 Nov
'07
2:12 p.m.
Beman Dawes wrote:
It is very useful and a sign of good software engineering if a test case accompanies a bug fix. But patch submitters don't always have enough time or knowledge of a library's test setup to submit test cases. I'd rather fixes be prioritized based on severity rather than whether or not they come with a test case.
Fixing a bug without adding a test case is very shortsighted. It's not uncommon for bug fixes to be lost from release to release, and regressions to be introduced, both caused by insufficient test coverage. The main reason to submit a patch instead of just a bug report is to help the developer; if there's no test case in the patch, I'm not helped by it since I still need to do most of the work.