Re: [PATCH v2 3/4] t4203: test mailmap functionality directly rather than indirectly

Eric Sunshine [off-list ref] writes:

On Fri, Jul 12, 2013 at 1:48 AM, Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

Jonathan Nieder [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

My current thinking is "no" --- the patch has as a justification "Now
we can test these aspects of .mailmap handling directly with a
low-level tool instead of using the tool most people will use, so do
so", which sounds an awful lot like "Reduce test coverage of commonly
used tools, because we can".

Yes, that was exactly my reaction that prompted my response.

Does any of my follow-up commentary result in a different
reaction?

Not really.  While I _do_ think direct testing has merits, I think
that should be done by adding direct tests, not by removing the
tests that are meant to protect higher level _users_ of the
underlying mechanism from breakages.  After all, their breakages may
not come from new breakages of the lower level mechanism (i.e. the
mailmap.c code) but the way these higher level code makes calls into
the mechanism, and direct test of the lower level mechanism will not
protect them from the latter kind of breakages.