I've used the MIT Continuous testing plugin in the past, but it has long since passed out of date and is no longer compatible with anything approaching a modern release of Eclipse.
Does anyone have a good replacement? Free, naturally, is preferred.
I found that Infinitest now has an Eclipse plugin that seems to work pretty well.
There is a list in this Ben Rady article at Object Mentor: Continuous Testing Explained. Unfortunately the only Eclipse tool appears to be CT-Eclipse which is not currently maintained either.
There is also Fireworks for IntelliJ and Infinitest which is not IDE specific but also has some IntelliJ integration.
My experience is that continuous testing within the IDE can become unwieldy and distracting, so I prefer to use something like CruiseControl to do this kind of testing. One tool I have found very useful is EclEmma, which gives you a very fast coverage turnaround for your units, helping you to decide when you have finished testing a particular area of the code.
Infinitest decides what tests it wants to run. Often it runs the wrong ones. Green bar sometimes good, sometimes meaningless.
I've had good experience with infinitest on a small and simple project. I've not run into any issues with it and find it fast and helpful.
I also use Infinitest (and voted for one of its answers), but I wanted to add another approach, which relies on the build server. Whenever you want to implement something, create a branch in your VCS, do your changes, commit to your branch. If you have a build server configured, which runs unit tests on every checkin, your unit tests are then run on the build server without actually having polluted the trunk (or HEAD, whatever you call it) and without you waiting for the test run to finish.
I admit that this is not really continuous unit testing in the sense you asked the question, but for large projects or large test suites even a "normal" continuous test runner may slow you down way to much.
For small projects I also recommend Infinitest or CT Eclipse.
Related
We use gradle as our build tool and use the idea plugin to be able to generate the project/module files. The process for a new developer on the project would look like this:
pull from source control.
run 'gradle idea'.
open idea and be able to develop without any further setup.
This all works nicely, but generally only gets exercised when a new developer joins or someone gets a new machine. I would really like to automate the testing of this more frequently in the same way we automate our unit/integration tests as part of our continuous integration process.
Does anyone know if this is possible and if there is any libraries for doing this kind of thing?
You can also substitue idea for eclipse as we have a similar process for those that prefer using eclipse.
The second step (with or without step one) is easy to smoke test (just execute the task as part of a CI build), the third one less so. However, if you are following best practices and regenerate IDEA files rather than committing them to source control, developers will likely perform both steps more or less regularly (e.g. every time a dependency changes).
As Peter noted, the real challenge is step #3. The first 2 ones are solved by your SCM plugin and gradle task. You could try automating the last task by doing something like this
identify the proper command line option, on your platform, that opens a specified intellij project from the command line
find a simple good enough scenario that could validate that the generated project is working as it should. E.g. make a clean then build. Make sure you can reproduce these steps using keyboard shortcuts only. Validation could be made by validating either produced artifacts or test result reports, etc
use an external library, like Robot, to program the starting of intellij and the running of your keyboards. Here's a simple example with Robot. Use a dynamic language with inbuilt console instead of pure Java for that, it will speed your scripting a lot...
Another idea would be to include a daemon plugin in intellij to pass back the commands from external CLI. Otherwise take contact with the intellij team, they may have something to ease your work here.
Notes:
beware of false negatives: any failure could be caused by external issues, like project instability. Try to make sure you only build from a validated working project...
beware of false positives: any assumption / unchecked result code could hide issues. Make sure you clean properly the workspace, installation, to have a repeatable state and standard scenario matching first use.
Final thoughts: while interesting from a theoretical angle, this automation exercise may not bring all the required results, i.e. the validation of the platform. Still it's an interesting learning experience and could serve as a material for a nice short talk, especially if you find out interesting stuff. Make it a beer challenger with your team when you have a few idle hours to try to see who can implement the fastest a working solution ;) Good luck!
what do you use for automatic GUI testing an eclipse rcp app?
I checked Xored Q7 which looks pretty awesome, but it doesn't work 100%, the same goes for froglogic squish. I need something for testing SWT/JFACE and GEF(but i could live without GEF support). Is there any other mature testing tool?
SWTBot is designed to test eclipse RCP (SWT&JFace) applications. It is still in incubation though. The last time I used it, it had some issues, but it's almost 3 years back, so I hope the maintainers have made some progress.
I'm in charge of Xored's Q7 development, and we'll be very interesting learning more about your test case (where Q7 does not work 100% perfectly). Can you please email me or Xored support and I'm pretty sure we'll resolve that problems very fast.
Thank you,
Andrey
I'm using SWTBot in the last year and it works fine. You must know that there is no record function, but writing the tests per hand isn't so difficult.There are some limitations regarding native dialogs, which cannot be tested using SWTBot.
There are another two GUI test frameworks from Bredex - Jubula / GUIDancer. Last year I have tried the Jubula, but without success to understand how it works.
In a Java project I'm working (alongside a team of 8 devs), we have a large backlog of features that lack automated tests. We are covering this backlog and we need to keep track of who wrote a JUnit test and when, plus we have to measure how many test we wrote as a team in a week/month/semester (as you may have figured out already, this information is for management purposes). We figured we'd do this by marking the tests with the information we need (author, creation date) and let Eclipse do the processing work, showing us tests we wrote, who wrote'em and how far we were from reaching our goals. How would you smart people go about this? What plugins would you use?
I tried to use Eclipse Custom Tags for this, but it's not the purpose of the feature, and the results I got were kind of brittle. I created a TEST tag that was supposed to mark a test method. It looks like this: (date is mm-dd-yyyy)
//TEST my.name 08-06-2011
Since Eclipse processes tag description by substringing (contains/doesn't contain), it's, as I said, very brittle. I can timestamp the tag, but it's just a string. Eclipse can't process it as a date, compare dates, filter by date interval, stuff like that.
I searched for plugins, but no dice.
My B-plan is to create an Annotation with the information we need and process our test packages using Eclipse Annotation Processing Tool. I haven't tried anything on this front yet, though, just an idea. Anyone knows a good plugin for this kind of Annotation processing? Or any starter tips for dealing with Eclipse APT.
Thanks a bunch, folks
I would not use Eclipse for this.
Your team should be checking the tests into a version control system such as Subversion, Git, Team Foundation Server, etc. From there it should a fairly straightforward matter to determine the owner and check-in time. You can and should do this sort of metrics calculation during every build. Better yet, be sure that your build script actually runs your tests and uses a tool like EMMA to instrument the code and determine the actual coverage.
As a fallback for measuring coverage, if you choose a naming convention then you may even be able to correlate the test classes by file name back to the feature under test.
Many modern build systems, such as CruiseControl, have integration for doing these sorts of things quite nicely.
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I've seen questions about IDE's here -- Which is the best IDE for Scala development? and What is the current state of tooling for Scala?, but I've had mixed experiences with IDEs. Right now, I'm using the Eclipse IDE with the automatic workspace refresh option, and KDE 4's Kate as my text editor. Here are some of the problems I'd like to solve:
use my own editor IDEs are really geared at everyone using their components. I like Kate better, but the refresh system is very annoying (it doesn't use inotify, rather, maybe a 10s polling interval). The reason I don't use the built-in text editor is because broken auto-complete functionalities cause the IDE to hang for maybe 10s.
rebuild only modified files The Eclipse build system is broken. It doesn't know when to rebuild classes. I find myself almost half of the time going to project->clean. Worse, it seems even after it has finished building my project, a few minutes later it will pop up with some bizarre error (edit - these errors appear to be things that were previously solved with a project > clean, but then come back up...). Finally, setting "Preferences / Continue launch if project contains errors" to "prompt" seems to have no effect for Scala projects (i.e. it always launches even if there are errors).
build customization I can use the "nightly" release, but I'll want to modify and use my own Scala builds, not the compiler that's built into the IDE's plugin. It would also be nice to pass [e.g.] -Xprint:jvm to the compiler (to print out lowered code).
fast compiling Though Eclipse doesn't always build right, it does seem snappy -- even more so than fsc.
I looked at Ant and Maven, though haven't employed either yet (I'll also need to spend time solving #3 and #4). I wanted to see if anyone has other suggestions before I spend time getting a suboptimal build system working. Thanks in advance!
UPDATE - I'm now using Maven, passing a project as a compiler plugin to it. It seems fast enough; I'm not sure what kind of jar caching Maven does. A current repository for Scala 2.8.0 is available [link]. The archetypes are very cool, and cross-platform support seems very good. However, about compile issues, I'm not sure if fsc is actually fixed, or my project is stable enough (e.g. class names aren't changing) -- running it manually doesn't bother me as much. If you'd like to see an example, feel free to browse the pom.xml files I'm using [github].
UPDATE 2 - from benchmarks I've seen, Daniel Spiewak is right that buildr's faster than Maven (and, if one is doing incremental changes, Maven's 10 second latency gets annoying), so if one can craft a compatible build file, then it's probably worth it...
Points 2 and 4 are extremely difficult to manage with the current scalac. The problem is that Scala's compiler is a little dumb about building files. Basically, it will build whatever you feed it, regardless of whether or not that file really needs to be built. Scala 2.8.0 will have some tremendous improvements in this respect, but until then... Eclipse SDT actually has some very elaborate (and very hackish) code for doing change detection and dependency tracking. On the whole, it does a decent job, but as you have seen, there are wrinkles. Eclipse SDT 2.8.0 will rely on the aforementioned improvements to scalac itself.
So, building only modified files is pretty much out of the question. Aside from SDT, the only tool I know of which even tries this is SBT (Simple Build Tool). It uses a compiler plugin to track files as they are compiled and query the dependency graph computed by the compiler itself. In practice, this yields about a 50% improvement over the recompile-the-world approach. Once again, this is a hack to get around deficiencies in pre-2.8.0 scalac.
The good news is that reasonably fast compilation is still achievable even without worrying about change detection. FSC uses the same technology (ooh, that sounded so "Charlie Eppes") that Eclipse SDT uses to implement fast incremental compilation. In short, it's pretty snappy.
Personally, I use Apache Buildr. Its configuration is significantly cleaner than either Maven's or SBT's and its startup time is orders of magnitude less (when running under MRI). It integrates with FSC and attempts to do some basic change detection on its own (fairly primitive). It also has auto-magical support for the major Scala test frameworks (ScalaTest, ScalaCheck and Specs) as well as support for joint compilation with Java sources and IDE meta generation for IntelliJ and Eclipse. Oh, and it supports all of Maven's features (dependency resolution, etc) and then some. I'm even working on an extension which would allow interactive shell support integrated with JavaRebel and supporting several shell providers (Scala, JIRB, Clojure REPL, etc). It's not ready for the SVN yet, but I'll commit once it's ready (possibly in time for 1.3.5).
As you can see, I'm very firmly of the opinion that Buildr is the best Scala build tool out there. Its documentation is a little spotty where Scala is concerned, but that's because everything is so straightforward that it's hard to document without feeling verbose. You can always check out one of my GitHub repositories for examples. Good luck!
Have you looked at Intellij IDEA and its Scala integration ? Intellij has a loyal (fanatical?) following amongst Java developers, so you may find this is appropriate for your needs.
Am also quite frustrated with the scala plugin on Eclipse and I can add a few more problems to the list:
auto-complete only works some of the time
the debugger doesn't work properly (especially when trying to debug scala xml)
the debugger forgets breakpoints
'go to definition' doesn't work more often than not.
I'm glad to hear that Buildr sounds like a better alternative (on the build front anyhow), I'll give that a try - thanks!
If you use Emacs, I think Ensime is a pretty good IDE. I think at the time writing, Ensime is the only IDE that will give you fast and accurate autocompletion on both Scala and Java objects, including implicit conversions.
There's code browsing support using Speedbar, code templates using the excellent Yasnippet, and code completion menu using Autocomplete. These are all very modern, actively maintained Emacs packages. There's also out of the box incremental building support for Maven and SBT.
There's a lot more in there such as interactive debugging, refactoring, and the Scala interpreter in an inferior process. All the things you want in a modern IDE for Scala is already there in Ensime. Highly recommended for Emacsens.
For the reasons of completeness, I have to say that there is also Pants -- the build tool that in use in Twitter (one of the early scala adopters)
The main difference it that it is intended not only for scala (and written in python, by the way) and is modeled after google build system.
It's not so bloated as sbt, so for the freshmans it's much simplier, but I've never heard about Pants usage outside of twitter and foursquare.
If you scared of SBT, maybe another no-so-popular build tool, ABT, could be an alternative for you?
I went down the same road, and here is where I am at:
- After some initial investigation, I dropped Kate. I love to use it for most things, but when it came to things like defining tab completions, I found it sorely lacking. I would recommend that you look into gedit instead, which is much more robust for Scala development
- With gedit as my editor, I use SBT and have found it to be a great build tool. I can put it into a 'test' mode where when any code changes it recompiles the relevant files and runs my test suite. This has been an extremely effective way to work.
I have not taken a look at Buildr yet. I would like to say that I will, but honestly with SBT at my disposal I don't really have a compelling need to look at another build tool.
If you want to use Eclipse, but build the project using sbt, and still be able to debug, take a look at this post here:
zikaprog.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/scala-eclipse-sbt-and-debugging/
It also can be applied to builders other than sbt.
The latest version of the Maven Scala plugin supports Zinc/Nailgun for faster start times and faster incremental builds. See Zinc and Incremental Compilation.
I was always wondering why it is a big deal having version control support inside an IDE.
I always preferred to use a command-line/standalone version of the version control of choice and never found IDE integration helpful.
I know it can be helpful sometimes, for example to automatically keep track of renames, but I was bitten by version control plugins a couple of times (especially the ClearCase Eclipse plugin) that I'm now finding it counter productive compared to the command-line version, where I have better control.
What is your opinion?
Integrated Source Control also helps to only keep the important files under Source control. For example, when I add a new File in Visual Studio, the Plugin (visualSVN) will allow me to add it easily without me having to remember to go outside of my IDE and run the command to add it to the repository. On the other hand, it will automatically ignore temporary files, like the obj/ and bin/ Folders.
Essentially: Integrated Version Control that actually works is a great way to keep the repository clean and complete.
I like how some IDE's implement this. Ankh-SVN for Visual Studio is not that great and is a bit buggy, however Subeclipse I find to work exceedingly well when I'm using Eclipse.
I think it really depends on the IDE you're using and the quality of that plug-in. It's going to work well for some setups and terrible for others.
That's why I like Subversion with Tortoise SVN so much. I can choose to use the IDE integration when and where it makes sense, otherwise, just like you said, I can simply use the command line or in my case, the windows explorer based client!
Integration of the IDE with version control and, in particular, software change management (SCM) helps bringing together the philosophies of the IDE and the source control system.
One example is temporary files and binaries, that should not be checked-in and, e.g. in Visual Studio, end up within the source directory if you're not carefully creating new project and solution templates with a non-default directory configuration.
Another could be tracking of work items and complex bug fixes.
Also it saves some ceremony and context-switching when editing files.
Advanced integrations may also allow to push the change management system's concept of "configuration" ("branch", "tag", "view") into the IDE.
ClearCase integration, however, is clearly not "advanced".
A lot of it is simply the preference and comfort level of the user. Some folks are comfortable with the command line. Some prefer a GUI.
I wouldn't make generalized assumptions that all version control within the IDE is bad or buggy based on experiences with a particular plugin which had issues.
Why even have an IDE? Why not just do everything with a command line? ;)
The answer is that having it integrated with the IDE is "better".
My #1 reason:
You can visually see if a file is checked out or not, and if you need to edit a file, you can take the action right there where you are working.
There are more, but that is the big one.
It's depend on your IDE and the way you work with VCS.
Me and my team using VSS plugin-ins inside Delphi IDE, it gives a lot of flexibable feature when working together for example, All our forms are check-in when you start to write a letter or move components it asked if you want to check-out the code file or form.
also when some one change any code in other forms, it pop up and telling you it's already update by someone else and asking you to update current files in your H.D.
and you just get everything while you are in the IDE, you don't need to move to other external file, or command prompt to do a simple task.
I find most people who like to deal with command prompt working mostly in code without GUI IDE or may I be wrong.
Nearly all of my subversion needs can be handled by the IDE interface. It's a lot faster to do 2 quick clicks than pop up a command line, cd to the right place, issue the command, etc.
Command line has it's place, but with the current crop of IDEs, that place continues to shrink.
I have battle scars from using a buggy implementation of an IDE/VCS integration. In all honesty, if it was not buggy it would have been great. As long as there are great tools like TortoiseSVN, I don't see a need for IDE/VCS integration. I'd rather have more tools that do their job well than a few buggy tools.
Version control support in an IDE generally gives you a better view. The IDE actually knows what type of file you are looking at when doing a diff, which means it can do context highlighting and help you do merges more effectively.
I also think it saves setup time. In stead of installing all kinds of tools, a developer can download the IDE, do a checkout an be on it's way. If every developer on a project uses the same IDE, they can help eachother.
"Counterproductive" is a large word. If you have serious CVS/SVN problems maybe once a month, it's still way to few to have complicated clients installed on all your dev machines.
I have both systems where there is an integrated IDE (Microsoft FrontPage against an IIS Development Web site with Visual Source Safe on all of the web content) and where there is not (java command-line development, Visual Studio Express Editions). An intermediate case that I use is jEdit 4.x with VSS integration via plug-in.
I think the integrated case is valuable for the reason it always is -- you don't have to leave your application to interact with source-control functions and you don't have to worry about remembering to add new files and to check out files before editing them. The ability to have a smooth work process and to minimize the risk of oversights is powerful, as far as I am concerned. Even when the IDE-plugin integration is less than perfect (the jEdit 4.x case), I still prefer it over not having it.
I also agree that having explorer integration on Windows, the case for Tortoise SVN, is also a great capability, even when IDE integration is available. This allows convenient operation without having to launch the IDE while also being able to launch from the explorer window into the IDE (depending on file type) or editor or make or whatever while operating in Windows Explorer.
And yes, the command-line interfaces remain valuable, especially for scripting of recuring-operation patterns.
I operate in many contexts. Having low barriers and fluidity of operation in all of them is to be prized.
I'm not sure I understand the question. IDEs by definition are integrated, meaning that they're supposed to help you avoid the need to get out of the environment for anything project-related. Version control obviously fits the bill.
If you're looking for more practical reasons, one is that IDEs can offer you awareness by the nature of their graphical presentation. Eclipse, for example, will present files and directories that have changed. With additional plugins or suites, you can ever get real-time awareness as soon as another user is editing the same file, helping you predict a merge conflict before it occurs. I'm not familiar with a commandline based mechanism.
I use intellij integrated with cvs on a regular basis and by far the best feature of the integration of version control inside the IDE is line-by-line indications of what is added, edited, or deleted along with easy access (mouse hover/tool tip) to the pre-edit changes.
This is all within the source code in a non-obtrusive way.
For the nuts and bolts of version control (checkin/checkout/update/etc) I sometimes use the IDE and sometimes use the command line.
The number 1 reason for an SCM integrated with the IDE is that it makes it more effortless to use it and eliminates the need to REMEMBER to check things out. Through experience I have seen that steps that developers construe as extraneous, which often encompases anything other than writing code, don't get done. Making them do extra steps increases the odds that developers won't bother with it and will work around the source control system