Re: Testing Lua

["Gabor Szabo" <szabgab@...>]

On 9/27/07, Roberto Ierusalimschy <roberto@inf.puc-rio.br> wrote:
> > If the test suit fails because of some bug in libc then I would assume
> > the same failure could come up in the real world as well.
>
> Sure. But our duty is to make Lua correct in an environment wherein
> libc is correct. Of course, if the bug happens in a widely used
> platform, we may have to correct Lua despite the blame, but we cannot
> change Lua to conform to every bug in every conceivable platform.

This also means that as a distributor (e.g. the people behind the
various Linux distros) have no built in way to make sure Lua functions
correctly on their platform. If we assume the only problem can be
external to Lua, then they have no built-in way to verify that they
included versions of the various dependencies (e.g. glibc) that are
good.

As an end user if I want compile a (new) version of Lua on my platform
I face the same problem. I might start to use it, get various errors
and might have to dig a lot to find out if the problem is in my
script, in Lua or something else.

Wouldn't it be better to tell me: "Hey, the Lua test suit detected
some error on your platform while it passed on A,B,C,D... platforms.
Probably yours is broken"

Gabor