Re: [gnome-desktop-testing] Newbie news

[Ara Pulido <ara ubuntu com>]

Tom Uijldert wrote:
> Hi,
>   

Hello Tom, thanks for your interest in our project.
> Liked the idea of test automation a couple of weeks ago 		so I thought
> I'd try to contribute.
> Next comes the effort of getting mago to work...
>
> 1st attempt with Intrepid on eee-pc, found out:
> - need at least python 2.6 (usage of 'with' without 'from __future__'
> import).
>   
There is an Intrepid branch 
(https://code.launchpad.net/~canonical-qa/mago/intrepid) that contains 
code working in Intrepid. It lacks a lot of coverage, though.
> - 'notfifier-daemon' which had changed its' name to 'notify-osd'.
> - need for 'python-indicate' package which wasn't present in Intrepid.
>   
Those are only needed by notify-osd tests. You can skip running those.
> This sort of gave me the hint that automation was targeted at Jaunty
> exclusively so, on with the Jaunty upgrade.
>
> Finally got that working, to find out:
> - need to install python-pyxmpp
> - need to install another python-pidgin binding (forgot which one
> exactly).
>   
python-msn? Those are for pidgin tests.
> Anyway, these things take -much- time to find out and prevents newbies
> from getting up to speed fast.
>
> Hence the following questions:
> - is mago for Jaunty only (or Jaunty++)? or will there be a branch
> maintained for older versions?
>   
As I told you, there is a branch for Intrepid, but it has a lot less 
coverage.
> - shouldn't these requirements be documented and, better yet, explicitly
> be tested for? It would have been a great timesaver if, for instance,
> the code would explicitly check for which Ubuntu version its on, what
> python-version, what packages are needed (per testable application) and
> log that toward the tester beforehand.
> Guessing it from python stackdumps wastes time...
>   
Indeed. At least a README file to state which test cases can you run 
depending on the version you have would be nice.

Keeping branches for every release would also be nice, as it can be used 
to look for regressions. But I don't think it is worth it to keep them 
all on the same branch and add code to check which release is running.

I will try to take the time during this week to add README files to make 
it easier for people to understand how it works.

Thanks very much for your comments.

Cheers,
Ara.