Re: Testing JDK bugs?

[David Gilbert <david.gilbert@object-refinery.com>]

Jeroen Frijters wrote:

>David Gilbert wrote:
>  
>
>>The theory is easy:  Mauve should test AN implementation against THE 
>>spec.
>>    
>>
>
>Pardon me for beating my favorite horse again, but this assumes that the
>spec is somehow more valuable than code and/or that the spec doesn't
>contain bugs. In the real world both are buggy and users rarely care
>about the spec, especially when their app works on the RI, but not on
>our implementation.
>
>Allow me to rebut another issue that often comes up: "We'll make it spec
>compliant and when someone finds an application that depends on the RI
>behavior then we'll copy that behavior."
>
>IMNSHO, this is actually a very dumb approach. It makes our
>implementation worse than the RI in two ways:
>
>1) Apps coded against the RI (possibly) don't work out of the box.
>2) Apps coded against our implementation (and spec) run the risk of
>breaking in the future when we randomly decide to start emulating the RI
>instead of the spec.
>
>Of course, things aren't black and white and issues should be decided on
>a case by case basis, but considering the spec holy is not doing anybody
>any service.
>  
>

I'm sorry to have set you off.  Bear in mind that there is a difference 
between the theory and the practice here...I'm not too hung up on the 
theory, and I think the remainder of my original post made that clear.

Regards,

Dave