Re: from Danny's chat - 11/19

From: TeamB (chris_at_uzdavinis.com)
Date: 12/21/04 

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 12:06:36 -0500

"John Jacobson" <jjacobson8NOSPAM@wi.rr.com> writes:

> "Kevin Berry" <kevin@berry_REM0VETH1S_ware.com> wrote in message
> news:41c83da1$1@newsgroups.borland.com...
>> Captain Jake wrote:
>>> Design by contract results in a nice clean syntax when it is built into
>>> the language, but it isn't anything you can not implement using asserts.
>>
>> One of the benefits of DBC is that unit testing can be automated better.
>> If you have a set of pre and post-conditions you can have some kind of
>> automated tool that uses this information to generate test cases. At
>> least that's the way I understand it. I've never used DBC in practice so
>> it's all just theory to me, but the theory sounds good...
>
> This all sounds like something you would never want implemented in a release
> version. I can imagine the user delight upon encountering a cryptic error
> message like "Precondition x > 300 violated".

If it stops processing at that point, it still may be better than
continuing to run while silently failing. I think it all depends on
how "important" the task at hand is, and whether a corrupt system is
tolerable.

For example, while banks hate to have downtime, I'm sure they'd shut
off their network in an instant rather than leak money due to a bug.
But for minesweeper, its probably best to keep playing even if an
internal bug was detected. 

-- 
Chris (TeamB);

Relevant Pages

  • Re: from Dannys chat - 11/19
    ... John Jacobson wrote: ... >> One of the benefits of DBC is that unit testing can be automated ... >> some kind of automated tool that uses this information to generate ... >> used DBC in practice so it's all just theory to me, ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)
  • Re: from Dannys chat - 11/19
    ... >> Design by contract results in a nice clean syntax when it is built into ... >> the language, but it isn't anything you can not implement using asserts. ... > One of the benefits of DBC is that unit testing can be automated better. ... > automated tool that uses this information to generate test cases. ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)
  • Re: from Dannys chat - 11/19
    ... > Design by contract results in a nice clean syntax when it is built into the ... > language, but it isn't anything you can not implement using asserts. ... One of the benefits of DBC is that unit testing can be automated better. ... automated tool that uses this information to generate test cases. ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)