[cosmo-dev] Windmill Woes

[Adam Christian]

Bobby,

On Dec 14, 2007, at 4:30 PM, Bobby Rullo wrote:

> After the update to the latest Windmill (3.x) with all the new  
> dependency stuff, I find myself back at the point where Windmill is  
> more or less unusable for me. I ran into a number of problems:
>
> To create my test, I needed to know what state Windmill is in during  
> the running of that test. So I was told that the best way to do this  
> was to just run the test, which will run all its dependencies.
>
> So I do load_test() in the shell and give it a shot. It fails  
> because I'm on the wrong page  ('/chandler' instead of '/')
>
> Then I go to the proper starting URL and try again. It loads (takes  
> a long time) and I hit run. It's taking a while so I get up to go to  
> the bathroom. When I get back, the it's done! Yay! Oh wait, it's all  
> tore down. Gotta start again damn.
>
> So I clear the IDE and hit load_test(). This time load_test()  
> behaves differently - only the test itself is loaded, not the  
> dependencies. Damn. So I quit windmill and do it again.
>
> This time I make sure to watch very carefully so I can hit "Stop"  
> and observe the state of the app after setup. Well, the test fails.  
> Damn. At this point, I've given up. There's actually more iterations  
> of these sorts of things, but I didn't log every single thing - it  
> was frustrating enough as it is.
>
> Luckily, though the usability problems right now are IMO major, the  
> fixes are relatively simple:
>
> 	1) Documentation: If there was documentation in the __init__.py  
> telling test writers what state the app will be in after setup()  
> this whole thing would've been avoided.
>
> 	2) Don't be clever (or, do what I say not what you think I want):   
> The load_test() method loads a test into the IDE with all the  
> necessary setup and teardown actions. Well, that's how it behaves  
> the FIRST time you call it. Subsequent invocations only load the  
> test itself, forcing me to restart windmill. Grrrrrr. Windmill is  
> trying to be clever here, it's assuming that because I loaded the  
> dependencies once, they must've ran and I don't need them anymore.  
> Except that it's not clever enough - the dependencies failed, so I  
> need to try again. Also, what if i didn't want to load the  
> dependencies at all? What if I just wanted to load the setup? Or the  
> teardown? There should be explicit methods to do each of these  
> things that work the same way every time.
> 	
> 	3) Actions take too long to load.

This is no longer the case in trunk, I made some tweaks and now they  
load NIINJA fast.
>
>
> 	4) When there are several suites loaded into the IDE, give me the  
> option to run one at a time.
I agree, log a feature request... this isn't hard to add.

> 	5) Make windmill start at the correct url
Follow travis's advice.
>
> As for the tests not running after I got past all the hurdles, I'm  
> not sure what the problem is.

> In any event, I just want to acknowledge that the Windmill team has  
> been extremely responsive to the needs of the Cosmo team, and that  
> any usability bugs introduced were only because of an attempt to  
> make things better for us. So, thanks you guys!
>
> bobby
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