On: You-get: Dumb downloader that scrapes the web

[thih9]

It’s relatively easy to write a failing test and it massively cuts down the work related to moderating issues. Also, reduces the danger of github issues turning into a support forum.

If this results in the project being easier to maintain and being maintained longer, then I’m fine with this.

[seneca → thih9]

> It’s relatively easy to write a failing test and it massively cuts down the work related to moderating issues.

Relative to what? Learning someone else's code base well enough to write a useful test is not trivial.

It's not a bad method, but the vast majority of users won't be capable of writing a test that encapsulates their issue.

[chucksmash → seneca]

In the case of this tool, adding a failing test case looks trivial if you've got the URL of a page it fails on.

Provided the maintainer is willing to provide some minimal guidance to issue reporters who lack the necessary know-how, it even seems like a clever back door way of helping people learn to contribute to open source.