[Dune-devel] Regarding GSoC 2013

[Christoph Grüninger]

Hi Elena,
I wanted to mention that you can run the tests also using CMake and CTest.
Actually I like these more because the tests results are more clearly
presented.

> So first of all, what I tried to do is to create some Makefiles inside the
> autobuild and somehow try to check how it works.

Did you have a look into the build system howto?
If you want to get in touch with the build system, try to add a folder and a 
Makefile.am. Check whether dunecontrol (aka configure and autogen) and 
"make doc" still work. Or copy a test and add it to the automated testing.

> Most of them passed, but sometimes it gave information that "a test
> was not run".

Some test are not run, because you are lacking a feature and the tests
could not be compiled or run. An example would be MPI that is used for
parallel computing.

> On the other hand, I was thinking about possible ideas. I saw that in some
> of the modules, there are less tests than in some others. As an example, in
> dune-common and in dune-grid seemed to me that there were much more tests
> than in dune-geometry.

The number of test programs is not a good way to estimate the state of
testing. In your example dune-common has more features and needs
more testing. And within one file several things are tested.
Usually you would use code coverage or something similar to estimate the
quality of testing. GCC has some built-in capability for that.

> If you think I am wrong, or leading in a wrong direction, please,  do not
> hesitate to tell me. I would really like to hear whether I should change
> something in the direction that I've taken or the way I understood the
> concept.

I guess that just polishing the existing tests and adding some more would
not be enough for a GSoC project. I would advice you to have a look on
testing performance and performance regression in a more general manner
than just Dune.

Bye
Christoph

-- 
[..] we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control
station in Houston, a giant rocket [..] and then return it safely to
earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per
hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun,
almost as hot as it is here today, [..] then we must be bold.
[John F. Kennedy Moon Speech - September 12, 1962 - Rice Stadium]