[gamin] State of python unit tests?

[William Lachance <wrlach gmail com>]

Hi,

I've been wanting to commit a fix to Gamin for bug #323064, but it
seems like the python unit tests (which get run when I type 'make
check' from toplevel) aren't passing.

The thing is, they don't pass in the version currently in CVS either.
It seems as if they have both timing issues (i.e.: changing sleep(1)
to sleep(2) can change the results dramatically), as well as possibly
not having been maintained/updated for changes in the behaviour of the
API (and/or new features, such as the inotify backend).

So I guess my questions are:

1. Is there a plan to bring these guys up to date, make them more
robust, and (most importantly) continue maintaining them in the
future? Or should they just be disabled entirely?
2. Is it ok for me to commit my patch while they still fail? The (less
comprehensive tests) in the tests subdir still pass.

My opinion is that trying to keep things "not more broken than before"
is kind of a losing strategy with regards to unit testing. It's just
too frustrating interpreting test results, and the potential to make
things even worse is great. Better to have tests that pass all the
time (on all possible machines), or none at all.
--
William Lachance
wrlach gmail com