I got an e-mail about where to jump in with helping to push core's testing efforts forward, and of course one of the prime ways to do this is with helping with documentation. So here's how to do that.

1. http://groups.drupal.org/node/11020 is the forthcoming "How to write tests" documentation that's currently in "beta". We need people, preferably people with no testing experience to look through that documentation to see generally a) does it make sense? b) does it answer all the questions I have about testing? c) are there parts where it's still ambiguous/unclear? That page is a wiki page, so feel free to go absolutely nuts with the +4 Machete of Merciless Editing in order to get things to the point where you understand them.

2. Since these new "beta" docs are intended to replace the docs at http://drupal.org/simpletest, which are hopelessly out of date, it'd also be helpful to have a list of what's covered in the incorrect docs that's currently not covered in the correct ones, and update http://groups.drupal.org/node/11020 accordingly.

3. Once you feel http://groups.drupal.org/node/11020 is looking pretty good, it's time for the ultimate challenge. Choose one of the following:

  • Attempt to write your first test for Drupal 7.x core*
  • Fix one of the existing tests that are currently broken
  • Or, if you don't feel you have the development chops yourself to pull this off (note: chances are you do :)), ask a developer in #drupal to walk through your docs and see if they can do either of the above.

There's a list of existing issues under the "tests" category, or you can use your imagination to come up with some particularly gnarly function that's given you grief in the past, a bug you've run into before you never want to again, or some long chain of form clicks you have to do to verify X functionality that isn't covered by the existing tests.

* I was hoping that this step could be "Write a test for ANY contributed module or core" but unfortunately the syntax for tests in 5.x/6.x and 7.x is different so until that issue is fixed, you have to stick to 7.x core for now. :(

3. Refine http://groups.drupal.org/node/11020 as needed based on step 3.

4. Move http://groups.drupal.org/node/11020 to http://drupal.org/simpletest

5. Rejoice and have punch. Glorious, glorious punch.

Who's up for the challenge? ;) Ideally, this'd be a small team of people, not a single person, in order to make sure the docs are that much more kick-ass. I can't over-emphasize enough how important this is to the community.

Comments

webchick’s picture

Category: bug » task
Priority: Normal » Critical

Normal? Hardly. ;)

butterfi’s picture

I'm going to start working on this issue as part of May 24, 2008 doc sprint:

Saturday May 24 at 18:00 (6 pm) GMT / 2pm ET / 11am PT

and will be on IRC (#drupal-docs) for anyone who wants to play along.

I know close to nothing about SimpleTest, so this would be a great opportunity for anyone who wants to learn along with me...

webchick’s picture

I'll try my best to be there too. I wrote the docs so I'm useless for reviewing them, and don't know everything about SimpleTest and friends, but I can try and answer any questions with what I do know. :)

heather’s picture

Component: Developer Guide » Correction/Clarification

Changed the component to reflect the new component categorization. See http://drupal.org/node/301443

add1sun’s picture

this is related to #240216: Getting Involved: Testing section work and still needs to be filled out.

arianek’s picture

i'm wondering if any of these needs should be altered for D7 work? there are a lot of docs in the simpletest handbook section now (i'm assuming it was more sparse before, as this issue hasn't been touched in over a year). there will be a big review of that section for the core module handbook pages anyway, so this may end up being redundant (or being modified into that issue?)

thoughts?

arianek’s picture

Issue tags: +Simpletest, +d7docs, +handbook, +testing

adding tags

jhodgdon’s picture

Issue tags: +developer

tagging

sallybaker’s picture

Priority: Critical » Normal

Downgrading priority as this is for a previous version of Drupal. This is also a very old outstanding task.