To error out or to skip tests?

[Joerg-Cyril.Hoehle at t-systems.com]

Hi,

Paul Vriens wrote:
>In my opinion the main purpose for skip() is to not run tests for 
>legitimate reasons.
Alas, this sentence and the examples you give do not explain to me why
to use skip instead of e.g. trace + return. What is the added value?
What to do about that blue color or mention in the log file?

My principle is: do not produce output if there's no consumer.
Refuse to write a memo if nobody is going to read it!

Why, on w95, should I use skip to mark the impossibility
to call UTF-16 xyzW functions? Why not simply use
if (W_isAvailable) { do_more_tests }
We already have files that end up performing a varying number
of tests, depending on simple if-then-else statements, without use of skip.

That's different from the localisation example: I could switch the locale,
then re-run the tests.  This is again this skip=="call for action" idea
I mentioned previously.


BTW, I've sent two patches today to stop errors on machines with sound.  The
third one (the localisation issue -- milliseconden, you already know it)
is written but currently at the end of my patch queue.  That should bring
the number of errors down to 0 on every machine with sound.

The final one, about how to deal with machines with no sound, yet trying
to test something instead of skipping everything, I still have to think about.

Regards,
	Jörg Höhle