Talk:Doctest

--Ctheune 13:38, 2 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I'd like to add a section with good usage examples and bad usage examples (in addition to the pros and cons)


 * Maybe also put the pros/cons into a section called 'criticism'

Although I like the idea of a criticism section, I think that one has to be wary of criticising it for not being a Unit test like jUnit.

Doctest I think should be judged on how well it allows interactive shell sessions to be turned into tests embedded in docstrings, and how such embedded tests work both as tests, and as documentation.

Anything that makes writing good tests easier is likely to improve programmers productivity so I 'cut a lot of slack'. --Paddy 07:39, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I re-inserted the example unique_words.py so I could refer to how it runs the doctests if executed but not if imported.. --Paddy 07:39, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Not a tutorial
I don't think there are any doctest equivalents outside of Python in regular use, so Non Python programmers may not have come across the idea. The article tries to explain its use through example but is not a tutorial. Please explain in much more detail what is wrong with the article before slapping the 'big i' on it --Paddy 03:29, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Doctest in other languages
I have noticed that there are now doctest-like utilities for Javascript and Ruby. I would ask you not to add them to the main article before they are established within their languages community by, for example, being added to the languages standard library, or being documented, (not necessarily wiki'd), on the languages home site.

From experience on other articles, it keeps the page focused. --Paddy 05:12, 24 August 2007 (UTC)


 * On the other hand, the existence of doctest.js, cram (for the shell) and other doctest libraries in many languages contradicts the statement that doctest makes use of unique Python features, so maybe mentioning those other libs would help correcting the article. Leafcat (talk) 16:31, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Leafcat, there is an example unique_words.py, but the article text uses 'innovative' to describe Pythons implermentation of doctest rather than unique. --Paddy (talk) 23:24, 25 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I don't understand your motivation. Whether something is ever mentioned on a programming languages homepage (or included in a standard library) really depends on how a programming community works.  Some programming languages do not even have an official homepage, other than a wiki.  Looking at QuickCheck, it is an innovative idea from the Haskell community, and there are re-implementations for many languages.  The article on QuickCheck mentions them.  According to your "standards" we would have to remove them all.  I'm explicitly asking to mention other implementations, so that the article is more objective, balanced and useful. --217.81.172.130 (talk) 08:56, 9 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Are you advocating no filter on the trite, experimental, or both? --Paddy (talk) 19:50, 17 September 2012 (UTC)