Remove the shebang?

[kytrinyx]

Should we revisit the decision to add a #! line to the test suites?

Here's the most recent discussion about it: #289
Here's the original discussion: #93

I was pretty neutral on this, but have come down on the "I'd rather not have it". It adds noise, it's not very conventional, and there are great tools that people should be introduced to if this is their jam.

[kotp]

My quick thoughts about it, both for and against...

• When we maintain and run the tests from inside this project, it is simply easier to use the make tool.
• I personally don't use the fact of the executable test files, it takes more work, than to simply use the make tool, because...
  • unless you soft link example.rb to exercise.rb the dependency isn't there.
  • due to the choice and need to have the generic 'example' name pattern.
• If you think about the require 'minitest/autorun' it suggests that it isn't odd to set tests up as executable. It may not be common to see in some styles of projects though, such as Rails, where the use of Rake is highly relied on. But...
  • Zenspider says:

    It's what tests do: run, so why externalize the functionality of it?

• The execution bit doesn't survive the client side pull, so it doesn't pose the issue of "unknown executable" there, but it is set up to easily mark it with the executable bit.

[kotp]

The shebang being there doesn't get in the way... if the nitpicker chooses to make the file executable, they are allowed. It makes sense that tests are runnable, we don't change the execution bit on their machine, but the shebang makes it simple to simply do so if they wish to. It doesn't get in the way, it is conventional on Unix to provide magic strings, and it communicates that it "could" be made executable and the file system will simply know.

On Windows, this is done in another way, by adding the .rb to the filename or .wrb if you want it to execute in a 'window'. And we already give Windows their "magic" string by default.

[remcopeereboom]

I'm not sure if I should be part of this discussion, but I noticed it under the open issues.

I don't actually ever run using the shebang due to how I have my editor set-up (and the fact that I frequently run under windows), but it certainly has never bothered me. I've also never seen any exercism users complain about it. Have there been concrete problems that have led to the opening of this issue?

there are great tools that people should be introduced to if this is their jam.

I agree that it would be nice to introduce people to some tools, but I think you should be hesitant about forcing them on your users. Using tools might confuse people and make exercism harder to use; even if the tools are considered part of the standard toolchain. From the feedback I've gotten from the site, I can tell you that the majority of users are completely unaware that such tools exist. Most have never even used rake or heard of things like rubocop.

[kytrinyx]

I'm not sure if I should be part of this discussion

Yes, please!

I agree that it would be nice to introduce people to some tools, but I think you should be hesitant about forcing them on your users.

Agreed, this should be optional.

That said, I have never, ever seen projects where they stick a shebang in the test suite, and I don't feel like it teaches people any sort of good practice.

[kotp]

What you said... the shebang in "projects' test suites", but that is because usually projects have test tools.

We don't present projects for them. We have an exercise where they are expected to run that one test file. Heck, they aren't even expected to run the code they are writing. This isn't "that" thing.

We aren't teaching projects.

Because the _test.rb file is the executable here, it is appropriate, perhaps even doubly relevant. But we don't even 'activate' it for the nix's, the 'dows' and 'dos' machines get it for free because of the extension, though some dos environments they still need to 'activate' it.

I don't feel strongly about it, actually. So that isn't the tone here. But the comparison isn't the same for the tests they get from the exercism client and a project environment.

Inside here, that is a little different. We don't need the shebang at all, we have make test-assignment while we are development, and the git hook, and perhaps another tool or two in bin for the actual project.

The exercismist may simply chmod the test and invoke it without even calling "ruby" on it with that magic string. The Windows folks get that "magic" automatically due to the extension, not sure why we don't for the Nix's, since the goal is to run "that one file" that happens to be a _test.rb that has tests, but which is the "focus" of that tool.

Still, I don't feel strongly for or against it, it is easy enough for them to learn how to create a shebang that makes sense for them. We actually have ours in a "preferred way" which is a good example of that specific thing. There are other ways to do the same thing that have subtle problems. At least we do it right, it stays out of the way, it is there if they want it (no one needs it, really).

If we don't have it, again, no problem. The Windows folks keep it, the Linux/BSD/Unix/etc, lose it.

[kytrinyx]

The exercismist may simply chmod the test and invoked it without even calling "ruby" on it with that magic string.

I still don't see the benefit of calling it without ruby. I call my tests with ruby all the time. Then I bind it to a key so that I don't have to type it over and over again. Or I use the arrow up to find it in history. Or control-r to find it farther back in history.

I get that an exercise isn't a project, but have you ever seen anyone put shebangs in their ruby tests?

I think what I'm trying to get at is that we are adding a line of code that I think it would be a bad idea to emulate elsewhere.

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.