[racket-dev] [racket] Disable/Enable Tests

I think we're over-complexifying the whole situation. 
Perhaps we should allow only one of these things to 
appear in the definitions buffer. We're talking about
novice programmers. I don't expect them to use check-expect 
after semester 1 (or perhaps part of 2). I just don't think 
that this is a big deal. -- Matthias





On Nov 29, 2011, at 9:38 AM, Robby Findler wrote:

> If I put two -above's in a row does that push past the previous -below?  :)
> 
> In all seriousness, this seems like a way for students to get confused
> about what their programs are or aren't doing. It seems easy to lose
> track of where the aboves and belows are.
> 
> If I understand correctly, this is not a performance issue, but an
> issue of keeping track of which test cases are the interesting ones
> while working on one part of a program. That is, we want a mechanism
> to focus in on a section of the program and its test cases.
> 
> If that's correct, then I think we have two better routes to pursue:
> 
>  - multi-file programs
> 
>  - better support in the GUI for showing us only some of the test
> results (perhaps something to focus in on test cases that test
> specific functions or something like that).
> 
> Robby
> 
> On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 7:03 AM, Matthias Felleisen
> <matthias at ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
>> 
>> I see two sequences:
>> 
>> -below ;; disables up to
>> 
>> -above ;; here; disables up to -below and re-enables tests
>> 
>> or
>> 
>> -above ;; disables everything up to here and enables tests up to
>> 
>> -below ;; here; disables tests below.
>> 
>> Anything else? -- Matthias
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Nov 28, 2011, at 10:09 PM, Robby Findler wrote:
>> 
>>> Those two seem like they can combine in strange ways.
>>> 
>>> Robby
>>> 
>>> On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 9:08 PM, Matthias Felleisen
>>> <matthias at ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> I can see adding both disable-tests-above and disable-tests-below.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Nov 28, 2011, at 3:44 PM, Vincent St-Amour wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> At Mon, 28 Nov 2011 11:54:06 -0500,
>>>>> Matthias Felleisen wrote:
>>>>>> I propose
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 1. to remove the menu and its functionality
>>>>>> 2. to add a macro disable-tests-below
>>>>>> 3. and be prepared to add a macro enable-tests-below.
>>>>> 
>>>>> `disable-tests-below' makes it easy to accidentally skip running tests
>>>>> altogether.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Consider this scenario:
>>>>> - A student works on an assignment, one problem at a time.
>>>>> - Once a problem is done, he doesn't touch the code anymore, and
>>>>>  wants to disable the tests.
>>>>> - With `disable-tests-below', he needs to add it at the top of the
>>>>>  file, and to add `enable-tests-below' before the problem he's now
>>>>>  working on.
>>>>> - If he forgets to add `enable-tests-below', no tests get run at all.
>>>>> 
>>>>> `disable-tests-above' would accomodate this workflow better. If the
>>>>> student forgets to move it as he solves problems, then more tests get
>>>>> run. No problem. That sounds like a better default to me.
>>>>> 
>>>>> However, I'm a bit uncomfortable with `disable-tests-above' affecting
>>>>> the behavior of what comes before it. It may lead to confusing
>>>>> situations.
>>>>> 
>>>>> A region-based solution also sounds good. Especially since (I assume)
>>>>> only a small number of tests are actually expensive.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Vincent
>>>> 
>>>> 
>> 
>>