+1

On 2/17/2020 11:32 AM, Ankur Sinha wrote:

ankursinha reported a new issue against the project: NeuroFedora that you are following:
``
Hi!

Given how domain specific a majority of NeuroFedora software is, I was wondering what the non-neuroscience people in the team thought of the domain folks writing test cases to help them understand how the applications are run (and while doing this, test the packages also)?

I think this is a fantastic idea, that would greatly improve the
accessibility for non-neuroscience people like myself.  Reading tests,
once you get past the syntax, helps me a lot to understand what I'm
looking for and the give and play between software and test suite
(echoing the interaction between software and software user). For
somebody who doesn't use the software, it cuts down the heavy investment
of time to understand what a software is supposed to be doing.

So, the idea is:

• a domain person (for example, me for computational neuroscience) can write test cases for the tools.
• For example, for NEST, I will write:
• how to install it,
• how to run a test simulation (based on examples maybe),
• how to test that the simulation does what it is supposed to,
• I'll include a description of what the test case is doing.
• The test case can then be specified in Bodhi when we create updates (I still need to check how this is done, but it's certainly doable).

So, everyone in the team can run the test case, learn a little about the tool, and test whether it is working as it is expected.

Since the test case will include detailed instructions, we can also use this as a simple activity to get new FOSS people who aren't neurosciencey started?

I would participate in this.  I feel like it would not only be helpful
for new FOSS people, but also early neuroscientists/students who are
just starting with the software and don't have access to a mentor or
specific course of study introducing and increasingly utilizing a piece
of domain specific software.  It might be helpful to make such
instructions available on our blog or SIG page so that newcomers who are
just browsing can stumble across it, click a link (or run a command) and
download the software and follow a test case to get a basic handle on
how a piece of software works.  My personal experience has been that
such introductions can spark an interest that leads to more exploration
and eventually proficiency.

Similarly, when we have someone from the neuro-imaging domain, they can write test cases for neuro-imaging tools.

This would be excellent work for a neuro-imaging  student to develop
practical programming skills that would be useful for their career.

Thoughts?

References:

• QA:SOP test case creation - Fedora Project Wiki
• QA:SOP package test plan creation - Fedora Project Wiki
• Category:Test Cases - Fedora Project Wiki
  ``

To reply, visit the link below or just reply to this email
https://pagure.io/neuro-sig/NeuroFedora/issue/339

--

Danny Lee dreamer@panix.com
I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough;
we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

Awesome, let me put this on my list. Once I've figured out how this is to be done, we can document it so that all maintainers can easily write similar documents for their packages.

I'll leave this open for others to weigh in for the time being.

Here's one I wrote up for the nest simulator. What do you think @dan1mal :

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Testcase_nest_run

Please, everyone, feel free to run the test case and give feedback on how it may be improved.

I've started doing this now. I've also got test cases for neuron. Closing this.