Time for a test - Any questions?

I'm a great believer in tests for code quality. In fact, I don't want to contribute code to a project if I can't add a test to the test suite. This is particularly important in collaborative projects where changes by others might impact on bugs I've fixed or features I've added. I've learned my lesson in the past. With a test suite, I can be sure that everything is still working the way I expect it.

I've recently started a new test suite for OpenBabel called obunittest. Although OpenBabel already has a test suite ("make test"), I wanted to have a test suite written in Python where people could easily add new tests.

obunittest is hosted at github and all of the necessary instructions are available at the obunittest website (just scroll down). Git itself isn't required, but you may find it interesting to use - to do so, just create an account on github and fork my project.

So this is your chance to add a test for OpenBabel. Now while this might not be everyone's idea of a fun time, if there's some feature of OpenBabel upon which you rely, write a test for it and send it to me (or "git it" to me). This will ensure that that particular feature will always work in future OpenBabel releases. The same goes if there's something that you know is currently broken - just write a test. Remember that a stitch in time means you won't be saying "darn".

Image credit: Duncan Hull (hi!)