RE: Testing Harness Proposal

["G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com>]

At 00/06/03 06:57 -0700, Lynda VanVleet wrote:
>I thought the committee needed a testing harness to be sure the tests we
>were publishing were valid?

I'm not sure what validity means in conformance testing.

The tests we collect from different sources will be categorized, 
catalogued, documented and reviewed for accuracy, but the mechanics of how 
the test files are used by a testing harness is out of scope.

That being said, we can't blindly produce a report without feedback from 
harness-writers regarding the utility of the report.

>That was my only purpose for the information.
>We don't have current plans to do conformance testing certification or
>anything like that.  If the committee does not need the harness that's fine
>too.

I anticipate tools such as yours to be useful to users of what we produce 
as a committee.  If what we produce isn't useful, then we won't have met 
our objectives.  Test harnesses will play an important role, but at an arms 
length and outside the purview of the committee itself.

Certainly knowing the requirements of test harnesses will be useful in 
designing our report to be valuable.  Thanks again for giving us the 
information.

...................... Ken

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G. Ken Holman                    mailto:gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com
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