[racket-dev] Compiling tests

On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 10:27 AM, Eli Barzilay <eli at barzilay.org> wrote:
> A few minutes ago, Robby Findler wrote:
>> On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 10:02 AM, Eli Barzilay <eli at barzilay.org> wrote:
>> > Yesterday, Robby Findler wrote:
>> >> This has caused me some trouble and I'm not sure it is a good way to
>> >> go, in general. Specifically, I'd like to think that our newer tests
>> >> will more and more be things we'd want to compile.
>> >>
>> >> My desire to compile the tests is the same reason I want to compile
>> >> any Racket file: so it loads faster.
>> >
>> > (To be clear, you're not talking about any other benefits besides
>> > being able to run your tests faster, right?  Since drdr (or the
>> > nightly build, for those tests) will still run them and report.)
>>
>> I find it valuable to work with compiled racket files when I build
>> racket software, tests or not. The drracket tests, in particular, have
>> non-trivial libraries that go with them, more than just a sequences of
>> inputs and outputs.
>
> (The question was what is that value, other than speed?)

Oh, yes. Speed is the only value for me with compiled files. Right. I
find this a significant value as I start things up over and over and
over.

>> > This sounds like a very minor damage: it's only you who wants to run
>> > your tests, and even that happens only when you're testing...  It
>> > seems that the benefit is also a minor improvement in tree setup
>> > speed, but that one is done much more frequently, and by much more
>> > people, so we get:  minor ⋘ minor * much².  Even more: I think that in
>> > all cases that I ran test code, it happens while I'm editing the code
>> > that is tested and/or the tests -- so I don't even get that small
>> > benefit in my workflow.
>>
>> I thought you said that disabling the eopl tests gets most of that
>> benefit. Assuming that was right, I would prefer to do that (this is
>> what I was trying to say in my previous message).
>
> The problem is future additions.  (Which is why I don't want to go
> back to selective exclusions.)
>
> In any case: poll?

For the record, I vote to allow compilation (by 'raco setup') in
collects/tests/.

Robby