[tz] Regression Tests and Revision Controls

Paul Eggert eggert at cs.ucla.edu
Sun Aug 10 19:14:52 UTC 2014


Brian Inglis wrote:
> If someone could contribute such a regression test script and baseline
> output

That's been done in the past (contributed privately to me), but my 
impression is that it wasn't ready for widespread publication and use, 
and was meant more for internal private use.  I do internal regression 
testing on an ad-hoc basis, and I've recently been talking with a Large 
Development Organization to try to do this sort of thing more regularly 
with the tz data, but we don't have anything publishable yet.

> normal revision control practice is to create a (tagged) branch for each
> potential change

That may be normal in some organizations, but it is neither common 
everywhere nor needed here.  That approach inevitably leads to 
configure-time complexity on downstream installers, developers, and 
users, complexity that in our case would cause more harm than the 
practice would cure.

Because the tz database is so small and stable that it's feasible for 
one very-part-time volunteer to merge everything into a single branch 
that's almost always near production quality, tagged branches wouldn't 
bring that much to the table.  It'd of course be OK if contributors 
wanted to take the time to make a tagged branch for each potential 
change, but as far as I know no tz contributor does that now and I'd 
rather not impose that kind of version-control bureaucracy on future 
contributors (including myself :-).


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