Re: [FYI] {master} docs: fix unportable example of AM_TESTS_ENVIRONMENT usage

[Ralf Wildenhues]

* Stefano Lattarini wrote on Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 10:45:02PM CEST:
> On Thursday 30 June 2011, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> > I'm fairly sure that's only with historic shells and not an
> > issue in practice any more (Sven Mascheck's pages will have the details
> > for the curious).

> Anyway, I do think that Eric's original proposal of extending the 
> parallel-tests
> harness to allow arbitrary and portable fd redirections is the way to go
> eventually;

Link?

> here are my reasons:
>  - it would be pretty easy to implement and document;
>  - the testsuite harness is being revamped anyway;
>  - that change would also benefit all the future custom and built-in test
>    drivers;
>  - the current hack with "TESTS_ENVIRONMENTS = ...; 9>&2", while continuing to
>    work, will prevent the use of AM_TESTS_ENVIRONMENT :-(
> 
> > > In each case, the user's namespace is invaded, and we go against our own
> > > advice (in [1] we violate the "always terminate AM_TESTS_ENVIRONMENT with
> > > a semicolon" rule, in [2] we violate "don't define TESTS_ENVIRONMENT in
> > > the Makefile.am, it's user-reserved" rule).
> > > 
> > > Also, the example above belongs IMHO more in a FAQ rather than in a
> > > reference manual.
> > 
> > Are you volunteering to update the FAQ?  ;-)
> >
> Oh no ;-)  Not this summer at least.

That's a pretty strong statement, and when accompanied by a
documentation regression (if I may exaggerate a bit), I'm not too happy
when I read this.  Please do not consider documentation work as second
class citicen.  Actually, writing (at least a sketch of) the
documentation before implementing a feature is a very good way to get
more organized and better design, IMVHO.

Thanks,
Ralf