[Zope-dev] Re: Why I dislike narrative doctests

[Philipp von Weitershausen]

Lennart Regebro wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 10:07 PM, Jim Fulton <jim at zope.com> wrote:
>>  - If a file is documentation and a test, make sure it is good
>> documentation. In that case, documentation comes first. Don't add so many
>> tests that it ruins the documentation.
>>
>>  - Test edge cases in separate tests.  These are typically short-ish strings
>> in test modules.
>>
>>  - A variation is to have a narrative that doesn't try hard to be
>> documentation.  The narrative can be convenient, up to a point, even in a
>> test.  These should be clearly marked as not being documentation.
> 
> I'ö happy to here this from an authorative source. I've been saying it
> for years, and I have usually been contradicted by people saying "no
> all tests should be doctests", Lets kill that sillyness once and for
> all now. :-)

I've written such rules down: 
http://svn.zope.org/Sandbox/philikon/foundation.

If it's missing something, feel free to suggest a patch.