[racket-dev] teaching languages error message

On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 1:40 PM, Matthias Felleisen
<matthias at ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
>
>
> On Oct 14, 2010, at 2:35 PM, Robby Findler wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 1:33 PM, Matthias Felleisen
>> <matthias at ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Oct 14, 2010, at 11:06 AM, Robby Findler wrote:
>>>
>>>> No problem. That's what drdr is for! :)
>>>>
>>>> But I'll go ahead and add you to the relevant test suites reporting.
>>>>
>>>> You might want to try them out, just so you get a sense (they're
>>>> really testing the integration of the teaching langauges into
>>>> drracket, so the precise wording is incidnental; they're trying to
>>>> make sure they get a beginner error and not a full language error).
>>>
>>>
>>> In that case, the test might just be checking for the
>>> wrong property. Shouldn't we change this, especially for
>>> precise wordings of error reports? (When Guillaume takes
>>> over, we'll see even more of this.)
>>
>> The test should test that the error message is one that is supposed to
>> come from the beginner language. I don't really see a better way to do
>> that other than just to edit the messages when they change. (DrDr has
>> made this process MUCH easier than it was before.)
>
> Refactor the error message machinery into a separate file (like I did for the teachpacks) and use this single point for both raising and checking error messages.

You're welcome to do this. It sounds like more work than what I currently do. :)

> But I don't understand why drracket tests for error messages. When you know the right language is running can't you trust its tests?

It is to make sure that the drracket connection to the teaching
languages is established properly. Each of these tests either came
from some connection I added at some point where I had to do something
special (in the past) or some bug I found. I can't tell you which is
which or what error or anything like that. I'm sure that many of them
are irrelevant now, but I keep them just to make sure.

It hasn't been a burden.
Robby