this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2024
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Programmer Humor

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Bug Fixing (programming.dev)
submitted 10 months ago by JPDev@programming.dev to c/programmer_humor@programming.dev
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[–] CodeMonkey@programming.dev 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

All the time. Causes include:

  • Test depends on an external system (database, package manager)
  • Race conditions
  • Failing the test cleared bad state (test expects test data not to be in the system and clears it when it exits)
  • Failing test set up unknown prerequisite (Build 2 tests depends on changes in Build 1 but build system built them out of order)
  • External forces messing with the test runner (test machine going to sleep or running out of resources)

We call those "flaky tests" and only fail a build if a given test cannot pass after 2 retries. (We also flag the test runs for manual review)