Re: RFC: adding pytest as a supported test framework

On Thu, 13 Jun 2024 at 20:11, Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> > But Perl is at the next level of unmaintained infrastructure. It is
> > actually clear how you can contribute to it, but still no new
> > community members actually want to contribute to it. Also, it's not
> > only unmaintained by us but it's also pretty much unmaintained by the
> > upstream community.
>
> I feel like I already agreed to this in a previous email and you're
> continuing to argue with me as if I were disagreeing.

Sorry about that.

> I also agree with this. I'm just not super optimistic about how much
> of that will actually happen. And I'd like to hear you acknowledge
> that concern and think about whether it can be addressed in some way,
> instead of just repeating that we should do it anyway. Because I agree
> we probably should do it anyway, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't like
> to see the downsides mitigated as much as we can.

I'm significantly more optimistic than you, but I also definitely
understand and agree with the concern. I also agree that mitigating
that concern beforehand would be a good thing.

> In particular, if
> the proposal is exactly "let's add the smallest possible patch that
> enables people to write tests in Python and then add a few new tests
> in Python while leaving almost everything else in Perl, with no
> migration plan and no clear vision of how the Python support ever gets
> any better than the minimum stub that is proposed for initial commit,"
> then I don't know that I can vote for that plan. Honestly, that sounds
> like very little work for the person proposing that minimal patch and
> a whole lot of work for the rest of the community later on, and the
> evidence is not in favor of volunteers showing up to take care of that
> work. The plan should be more front-loaded than that: enough initial
> development should get done by the people making the proposal that if
> the work stops after, we don't have another big mess on our hands.
>
> Or so I think, anyway.

I understand and agree with your final stated goal of not ending up in
another big mess. It's also clear to me that you don't think the
current proposal achieves that goal. So I assume you have some
additional ideas for the proposal to help achieve that goal and/or
some specific worries that you'd like to get addressed better in the
proposal. But currently it's not really clear to me what either of
those are. Could you clarify?