Proposal for Testing Tools Panel at PyCon07

Following Titus's example with his Web Frameworks Panel proposal for PyCon07, I proposed a Testing Tools Panel. And yes, I expect the author of twill to participate and take questions :-)

I created a TestingToolsPanel page on the PyCon07 wiki. Please feel free to add your own testing-related topics of interest and/or questions for the authors. If you are a testing tool author, please consider participating in the panel. You can leave a comment here or send me an email (grig at gheorghiu.net) and let me know if you're interested in participating.

Here's what I have so far on the Wiki page:

I maintain a "Python Testing Tools Taxonomy" (PTTT) Wiki page.

Here are some of the tools listed on the PTTT page:

• unit testing tools (unittest/doctest/py.test/nose/Testoob/testosterone)
• mock/stub testing tools (python-mock/pmock/stubble)
• Web testing tools (twill/webunit/zope.testbrowser/Pamie/paste.test.fixture)
• acceptance testing tools (PyFit/texttest/FitLoader)
• GUI testing tools (pywinauto/WATSUP/winGuiAuto/guitest)
• source code checking tools (pylint/pychecker/pyflakes)
• code coverage tools (coverage/figleaf/Pester)
• other miscellaneous testing tools (pysizer/pymetrics/svnmock/testtools)

I propose to have a panel where authors of some of these tools would discuss and take questions on topics such as:

• what need prompted the creation of the testing tool
• what type of testing does the tool belong to (unit, functional, acceptance, system, performance)
• what specific features does the tool offer that other tools lack
• what are the most common testing scenarios you have seen in your user base
• are there any platform- or OS-specific gotchas related to the tool
• how extensible is the tool (plugins etc.)
• how easy to learn is the tool
• how well tested is the tool
• how well documented is the tool