Default DNS server for Samba 4.0

[Andrew Bartlett]

On Thu, 2012-09-06 at 15:09 +0200, Michael Adam wrote:
> Hi Kai, Andrew, list...
> 
> Wow, the conversation has taken up such a momentum, that I can't
> reply to all mails in the thread. Just chiming in here...
> 
> On 2012-09-06 at 14:03 +0200, Kai Blin wrote:
> > On 2012-09-06 13:16, Andrew Bartlett wrote:
> > 
> > > I'm not sure where you got the idea that it was acceptable to have
> > > untested code in Samba.  That the DLZ code is in this state (which I am
> > > working to rectify) is no excuse to introduce more untested code.  
> > 
> > Well, I got the idea by looking at the other DNS implementation we had.
> > I agree it's nice to have tests,
> 
> Right, I have not seen a strict requirement to have all new code
> covered by tests. It is strongly desirable to have it though, of
> course! But then the need to cover existing but not automatically
> tested code in tests is not smaller.
> 
> > and I'd have bought the argument if the tests had been in there
> > a couple of betas ago.
> 
> I absolutely agree to Kai here: Requiring the code to be covered
> with tests for accepting to change a default is invalid and seems
> very unfair to me when the code from which the default status is
> to be taken has almost no automatic test coverage at all. Starting
> to add some tests now seem like a panic action...

I think it is a perfectly reasonable requirement.  If you want to change
the default, then there is a higher standard than just adding another
optional feature.  If you care so much about this, perhaps you could
work with Kai to add the tests?

I've worked with, written and debugged way to much code that 'should
work' or was at one point manually tested, and I'm really quite
surprised to hear an argument that having code outside the automated
test regime is acceptable.  As the person doing the most work on the DC
side of Samba 4.0 at the moment, the single thing that continues to save
my backside on a daily basis is 'make test' and autobuild.  We don't
have the large development team we used to have on the AD DC, and that's
sad.  But that means even more that I want to ensure that critical parts
of our system are as tested as they can be, despite and during changes
to the underlying libraries, and that *new defaults* that are proposed
are even more tested than what they propose to obsolete.  

This is not an unusual standard.  I try to apply the same standard to
myself.  I get badly burnt when I don't, and I apply the same standards
to others who I accept patches from.

Andrew Bartlett
-- 
Andrew Bartlett                                http://samba.org/~abartlet/
Authentication Developer, Samba Team           http://samba.org