Coding Together

[Tom Hukins]

Here's my feedback on Log::Dispatch:

On Thu, Dec 20, 2007 at 10:33:10AM -0000, Edwardson, Tony wrote:
> *	What testing already exists

Some limited tests exist.  They run through the basics of logging
something, but they don't go into much detail for each different type
of logging available (Syslog, File, Email, etc.).  The tests don't
test to see failures occur as they should.

> *	What the testing coverage is like

Numerically, not too bad.  With Devel::Cover, the POD coverage does
very well, as there's a test for this in the suite, but it's not quite
100%.  In general, the coverage works out around 80%.

But these numbers only show what code runs, not what different inputs
and outputs take place.

> *	What needs to be done

I'd suggest:
- Check for failure.  Do things go wrong as documented?
- Test the different types of logging, probably using Test::MockObject
  to override unwanted behaviour such as sending mail.
- Read through the documentation and write examples based on what's
  there
- Find examples of people using the modules in the wild and codify
  them as tests.  Perlmonks and mailing list archives should help us
  find such examples.

> *	How hard it is likely to be

I can see plenty of simple things to test for, and I bet we can think
of a few tricksy fun things, like how logging to a file deals with a
disk filling up.

I think this would make a good candidate for us to start out with.

Tom